Happy Boostlethon, idiosyn!
Title: Light it Up
Author: gladdecease
Recepient: idiosyn
Rating: PG
Summary: "Come on, Booster, where's your holiday spirit?" And when Rip Hunter was the one asking, that became a very good question.
Notes: Happy holidays, Boostlethon-ers! And if you don't subscribe to the "Ted Kord is a lapsed Jew" theory, well... I hope you like the fic anyway?
"Whatcha doin', Mikey?"
Booster fumbled his match, resisted cursing in front of a small child, wiped at his eyes, turned to look at said small child, and only then remembered to check that the match wasn't going set the table on fire. (It wasn't.) His panic thus relieved, he was finally able to say, "Rani! How'd you get in here?"
She squinted up at him disdainfully, and when she spoke her voice said he was being dumb and should know better. "Through the door."
"Oh." Booster ran a hand through his hair, muttering, "Thought I locked that."
"You did."
Rani looked just a little too proud of that statement, Booster thought. "Who taught you to pick locks?" he asked cautiously.
"Nobody," Rani said, as though being taught how to break into a person's private, personal space was a completely foreign concept to her. "It's not like it was hard," she added petulantly. And wasn't that great, he was raising a natural criminal mastermind. Booster made a private note to invest in some better locks as Rani folded her arms on the tabletop and rested her chin on them, to better peer at what Booster had been doing when she walked in.
A box of colorful candles sat open on the table, half-empty. A few of them had been shoved into a candleholder, though they weren't quite the right size to fit. To make up for that, Booster had been melting the bottoms of the candles and putting them in place before the wax could cool. The result was a slightly crooked, asymmetrical arrangement of candles Booster was kind of embarrassed to have had an hand in. Rani didn't seem bothered by it, a curious furrow in her brow the only shift in her expression.
"Is it somebody's birthday?" she asked at last. "I've never seen candles before that weren't for a birthday."
"The candles aren't for somebody's birthday, Rani," Booster said, trying to figure out a way to explain enough to sate her curiosity without actually having to... well. Explain. "You see - "
"There you are," Rip said, poking his head in the room and inadvertently becoming Booster's hero. Here was just the distraction he needed.
Rani turned to look at Rip, all smiles. "Boppy!"
"What are you - oh!" Oh? What oh? Booster's heart sank as he realized Rip's gaze was caught on the candles. Not him too! "I hadn't realized Kislev was almost over. Guess I've been in the timestream too long, if I'm losing track of the date out here." He waved a hand out the door. "Come on, Rani, I've got a better menorah than that one down the hall."
"What's a menorah?" Rani asked, following him out of the room, Booster at her heels, if only to ask, "What?" Because, really, what?
"You'll see," Rip told Rani. He shot Booster a confused look. "What?"
"That's my line! Since when are you - "
"You don't exactly look the part yourself," Rip shot back, which... well, was a point. And one Booster would have to concede, if he didn't want to give Rip the full story. And if telling Rani would've been awkward, then telling Rip would've been more than a little humiliating. No thank you. So Booster shrugged, and when Rip opened a door to reveal a shelf full of the appropriate paraphernalia, including a silver, nine-branched candleholder that made Booster's plastic one look absurdly sad in comparison, he didn't ask any of his questions. He sat through Rip's explanation and Rani's followup questions, and when Rani asked if she could light the menorah he echoed Rip's immediate no. No way was he letting this kid hold fire.
When she looked up at Booster, silently telling him to do it if she wasn't allowed, he passed the job on to Rip. Rani said something knowingly about the match Booster dropped earlier that got Rip to laugh, which was a strange sound, and though Rip still shot Booster a confused look, he performed his menorah-lighting duties without comment. Booster stared at the flickering flame of the shamash, letting the nasal lilt of Rip's (actually pretty decent) Hebrew wash over him, and wondered how he'd gotten here.
"Hanu-what now?" Booster wrinkled his nose. "And why does it sound like you're about to choke before you say the name?"
"Hanukkah, Booster, and that's how you're supposed to say it," Blue Beetle said. "It's a holiday celebrated in December - or, well, November sometimes," he corrected himself. "Damn Jewish calendar. Anyway, it's the closest thing we get to Christmas, so in America it's a pretty big deal."
"I didn't know you were Jewish."
"I didn't know you knew what Jewish was." Beetle spread his arms wide. "But come on, don't I look it?"
Booster gave him a faux-serious inspection, head to toe. He shrugged. "The color scheme is promising," he began, "but I know for a fact you don't keep kosher, and I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to work on Saturdays, not even superheroically. Not to mention - "
Beetle waved off the comments with a laugh. "Okay, okay, so I'm not the world's best Jew," he admitted. "But my point is, I was getting stuff together for the first night and it occurred to me that you, Mr. In The Future We Don't Have Religion, might want to see some of what you're missing out on."
"You mean besides the rules about what food to eat and who you can have sex with and the wars fought over a city some possibly divine guy was maybe born in?"
"Yeah, besides all that fun stuff. So what do you say, Booster buddy?" Beetle wrapped an arm around Booster's shoulders and pulled him close. "Want to celebrate Hanukkah with me?" Booster looked at Beetle's grin and couldn't think of anything he wanted to do more.
"Depends," he said, putting an arm of his own around Beetle's shoulders. "Is there Hanukkah food?"
"What's this?" Rani squinted at the coin, noticing almost immediately that the gold color was fake, a foil covering. She found the edge and peeled it back, revealing... "Chocolate?"
"Don't eat it just yet," Rip cautioned, stilly divvying up the remainder of the gelt between Booster, Rani, and himself. "It's not just for eating, you can play a game with it too."
Rani considered this. "What kind of game?" Rip grinned, and pulled out a painted wooden top. Booster watched him explain the rules to Rani, along with the meaning of the symbols, bemused by the Time Master's enthusiasm. Usually Rip was so stern and serious, absolutely no fun at all, and now suddenly he was smiling, and actually happy about something!
It just figured it would be something Booster didn't want to be happy about.
Not that he didn't want to be happy, he just - it wasn't the best time of year. Brought up a lot of memories, things he hadn't yet found a way to remember without getting suckerpunched by grief. Pretending to be happy about it for Rani's sake wasn't going to be fun. Or easy.
"Mikey?" Booster blinked, realizing he'd stopped paying attention. Rani was holding the dreidel out to him, expectantly. "It's your turn."
His stomach twisted in on itself. It was so easy to look at her and remember Ted doing the same thing, smirking, knowing Booster still hadn't figured out how to get a controlled spin from the blunt-tipped little top. How was he supposed to sit here and play with her and not think about how he'd never see Ted do that again? Booster swallowed against a tightness in his throat. He didn't think he could. "I don't know, Rani..."
"Come on, Booster, where's your holiday spirit?"
Booster gaped at Rip. What kind of alternate universe had he been flung into that Rip Hunter, stick in the mud extraordionairre, was asking him that question?
Rani frowned. "What's wrong, Mikey?"
And now even Rani was noticing something up with him. Grife, he must be worse off than he'd thought. Sighing, he cleared his head of his thoughts. This had nothing to do with Ted, it was just a little kid that wanted to play a game with her... with her guardians. He could do that. "Nothing's wrong, Rani. But I've gotta warn you, I haven't lost a game of dreidel in years, and I'm not gonna to easy on you just because you're new to the game."
Rani's eyes narrowed, and she grinned. "We'll see about that."
Twenty minutes later they certainly had. The mound of gelt piled up in front of Rani wasn't a foot tall or anything (though Booster wondered for a moment if it might have been, if she hadn't occasionally eaten a few of her playing pieces), but it was impressive. Booster, for his part, had only one piece left, and was trying to decide between eating it and forfeiting, or taking one last spin of the dreidel, on the off chance he might not lose it.
Rip, who had already given up, shook his head and grinned. "Forget it, Gold, there's no way you're making a comeback this late in the game."
"I could!" Booster protested automatically. Then he looked at Rani's pile again. "I'd just... rather eat my gelt, than bet it." With that, he tore open the foil and ate the chocolate before he could change his mind.
"I won!" Rani cheered. Setting aside some of her gelt for later, she unwrapped one and asked, "Is there any other stuff to eat at Hanukkah?"
"Well," Rip started to say as Skeets floated into the room.
"Sir, I've been looking for you," Skeets said before it could take in the scene. "There's - oh." It considered the pile of gelt, the little stubs of candles still burning away in the menorah, and finally Booster. "You're celebrating Hanukkah." It was amazing how that flat, robotic voice could sound so judgemental without any change in tone.
"It's fun," Rani insisted.
Skeets dropped down to her level. "Fun it may be, but it is also a trying time of year for - "
"Skeets, it's fine," Booster said, pulling it out of Rani's face.
"But - "
"It's fine," he insisted, voice low, holding Skeets close to his face so he could get a good look at Booster's sincerity. And he was sincere, unexpectedly. Playing dreidel with Rani and Rip had been fun, had been so different from how he played it with Ted that he eventually stopped comparing them. And without that to drag his mood down, he was honestly enjoying himself. It was a big improvement over the grieving he'd done by candlelight the last few nights. "We were just discussing what food to make next. Any suggestions?"
Skeets seemed flummoxed. "Oh. Well. If you're sure - "
"I am."
"Then, might I suggest latkes? After all that chocolate, I think you could do with a more... savory holiday treat."
Booster grinned. "Sounds good. Rip?"
He was frowning, and had clearly caught some of the implications of what Skeets had been about to say. Booster kept up the smile until Rip got the message to back off, and answered his question. "I can make it, but I've never been able to duplicate the recipe I grew up on. They refused to tell me the recipe."
"Same here," Booster grumbled. "And it's not like I can just call him up and ask - " Booster cut himself off, staring at Skeets, still held in his hands.
After a moment, Skeets said, "Might I remind you, sir, that you do own a time machine?"
"Prank Max... watchtower duty... hm, I should make two of those... steal J'onn's chocos... go ice skating drunk... prank Guy... and I think that should do it!" Booster finished folding up the squares of paper he'd written on, grinning to himself. Their version of dreidel was hardly traditional, but in his eyes it was way more fun. You didn't know until the end whether the notes the other guy had written were for gifts or dares (though with Ted, it was usually dares), so the object of the game wasn't to get all the "gelt," but to try to keep the best ones and get rid of the worst. And Booster very carefully folded his notes in such a way that he could tell just by looking at the outside whether it was one he wanted to keep or one he wouldn't mind losing to the pot.
"Hey, Ted, where's those latkes?" he called out, sorting through the dozen-odd dreidels Ted had somehow managed to get his hands on over the years. They came in all sizes and materials, and all of them refused to spin properly, except for one. Now, if he could just find it... aha! There it was. "Ted?" He hadn't answered before...
A door opened somewhere in the house, and Booster could hear Ted laughing. Relieved by the familiar sound, he followed it to the kitchen, where he found Ted smiling to himself over a pan of sizzling oil, taking out the last latke to cool. Booster breathed in deep and sighed. Something about the smell of frying potatoes was incredibly soothing, not to mention mouth-watering. He grabbed one of the already cool latkes, spooned applesauce onto it, and took a bite.
"Mmm," he moaned around the mouthful. Ted glanced over at him, and his smile went a little secretive. Booster made a face; sure, it was good, but that didn't mean you had to gloat about it, or refuse to give away the recipe. "You know," Booster said confidently, "one of these days, you're gonna give me that recipe."
Ted's smile widened. "You might just be right about that."
Booster returned what appeared to be only moments later, carrying a bag of cooking supplies. He paused every so often to look in the bag and laugh, as if he still couldn't believe its contents were what they were. Skeets hovered at his shoulder, equally disbelieving, if less amused about it. The two of them found Rip and Rani waiting in the kitchen, a pan of oil already heating up on the stove.
"I do know something about how it's done," Rip said dryly when Booster looked to him for an explanation. "And from the way Rani's stomach is growling, I thought we should speed up the process as much as possible." Rani, with half a piece of gelt in her mouth, shook her head at Booster from out of Rip's line of sight. That, and the anticipatory look in Rip's eye, gave Booster an idea of who really wanted things sped up here.
"No problem," Booster said, setting down his bag of ingredients. He pulled out tubs of sour cream and applesauce, set aside a bottle of oil with a muttered, "Guess we don't need this anymore," and slowly, aware of his audience and with a grand flourish, pulled out... a bag of frozen shredded hash browns.
Rip stared at it blankly. "You're joking."
"Afraid not! Turns out the recipe is "let thaw, then fry"," Booster said, grinning. "No wonder he always laughed when I asked him how he made them."
Rip rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. "You'd better hope those are already thawed, then. I don't know how much longer Rani is willing to wait." Again, Rani shook her head. Booster barely resisted the urge to laugh.
"Don't worry, they're plenty thawed. You want to help me make them, Rani?"
"You don't want me holding a candle, but this is okay?" Rani looked skeptical, but after a moment abandoned her chocolate to help Booster fold the defrosted potatoes into patties for frying. Rip watched them, smiling secretively to himself, and barely looked away as Michelle came into the room.
"Sorry I'm late," she apologized to Rip, "I got your message while I was out shopping, and there was a lot of traffic for the five miles or so before I got to the desert. What's going on?"
"Hanukkah," he said, pulling out a chair for her. "Thought you might want to join in."
Michelle wrinkled her nose. "Hanu-what now?"
Rip blinked, dumbfounded. "You've never heard of - you didn't do this when you were younger?" He held out a hand to encompass the whole of the room, gold foil wrappers and melted stumps of candles and people complaining about their potato-scented hands while the latkes fried. "None of this?"
Michelle took it all in and shrugged. "Nope. But it looks like fun, I bet Michael picked it up from one of his friends in this time period." Setting her shopping down, Michelle joined Booster and Rani by the stove, and within a minute was making latkes of her own. Rip looked at Booster, who seemed more obviously happy now than he had been in weeks, thought about what Skeets had nearly said, and it suddenly made sense.
"Yeah," he said to himself, "I bet that's exactly what he did."
Author: gladdecease
Recepient: idiosyn
Rating: PG
Summary: "Come on, Booster, where's your holiday spirit?" And when Rip Hunter was the one asking, that became a very good question.
Notes: Happy holidays, Boostlethon-ers! And if you don't subscribe to the "Ted Kord is a lapsed Jew" theory, well... I hope you like the fic anyway?
"Whatcha doin', Mikey?"
Booster fumbled his match, resisted cursing in front of a small child, wiped at his eyes, turned to look at said small child, and only then remembered to check that the match wasn't going set the table on fire. (It wasn't.) His panic thus relieved, he was finally able to say, "Rani! How'd you get in here?"
She squinted up at him disdainfully, and when she spoke her voice said he was being dumb and should know better. "Through the door."
"Oh." Booster ran a hand through his hair, muttering, "Thought I locked that."
"You did."
Rani looked just a little too proud of that statement, Booster thought. "Who taught you to pick locks?" he asked cautiously.
"Nobody," Rani said, as though being taught how to break into a person's private, personal space was a completely foreign concept to her. "It's not like it was hard," she added petulantly. And wasn't that great, he was raising a natural criminal mastermind. Booster made a private note to invest in some better locks as Rani folded her arms on the tabletop and rested her chin on them, to better peer at what Booster had been doing when she walked in.
A box of colorful candles sat open on the table, half-empty. A few of them had been shoved into a candleholder, though they weren't quite the right size to fit. To make up for that, Booster had been melting the bottoms of the candles and putting them in place before the wax could cool. The result was a slightly crooked, asymmetrical arrangement of candles Booster was kind of embarrassed to have had an hand in. Rani didn't seem bothered by it, a curious furrow in her brow the only shift in her expression.
"Is it somebody's birthday?" she asked at last. "I've never seen candles before that weren't for a birthday."
"The candles aren't for somebody's birthday, Rani," Booster said, trying to figure out a way to explain enough to sate her curiosity without actually having to... well. Explain. "You see - "
"There you are," Rip said, poking his head in the room and inadvertently becoming Booster's hero. Here was just the distraction he needed.
Rani turned to look at Rip, all smiles. "Boppy!"
"What are you - oh!" Oh? What oh? Booster's heart sank as he realized Rip's gaze was caught on the candles. Not him too! "I hadn't realized Kislev was almost over. Guess I've been in the timestream too long, if I'm losing track of the date out here." He waved a hand out the door. "Come on, Rani, I've got a better menorah than that one down the hall."
"What's a menorah?" Rani asked, following him out of the room, Booster at her heels, if only to ask, "What?" Because, really, what?
"You'll see," Rip told Rani. He shot Booster a confused look. "What?"
"That's my line! Since when are you - "
"You don't exactly look the part yourself," Rip shot back, which... well, was a point. And one Booster would have to concede, if he didn't want to give Rip the full story. And if telling Rani would've been awkward, then telling Rip would've been more than a little humiliating. No thank you. So Booster shrugged, and when Rip opened a door to reveal a shelf full of the appropriate paraphernalia, including a silver, nine-branched candleholder that made Booster's plastic one look absurdly sad in comparison, he didn't ask any of his questions. He sat through Rip's explanation and Rani's followup questions, and when Rani asked if she could light the menorah he echoed Rip's immediate no. No way was he letting this kid hold fire.
When she looked up at Booster, silently telling him to do it if she wasn't allowed, he passed the job on to Rip. Rani said something knowingly about the match Booster dropped earlier that got Rip to laugh, which was a strange sound, and though Rip still shot Booster a confused look, he performed his menorah-lighting duties without comment. Booster stared at the flickering flame of the shamash, letting the nasal lilt of Rip's (actually pretty decent) Hebrew wash over him, and wondered how he'd gotten here.
"Hanu-what now?" Booster wrinkled his nose. "And why does it sound like you're about to choke before you say the name?"
"Hanukkah, Booster, and that's how you're supposed to say it," Blue Beetle said. "It's a holiday celebrated in December - or, well, November sometimes," he corrected himself. "Damn Jewish calendar. Anyway, it's the closest thing we get to Christmas, so in America it's a pretty big deal."
"I didn't know you were Jewish."
"I didn't know you knew what Jewish was." Beetle spread his arms wide. "But come on, don't I look it?"
Booster gave him a faux-serious inspection, head to toe. He shrugged. "The color scheme is promising," he began, "but I know for a fact you don't keep kosher, and I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to work on Saturdays, not even superheroically. Not to mention - "
Beetle waved off the comments with a laugh. "Okay, okay, so I'm not the world's best Jew," he admitted. "But my point is, I was getting stuff together for the first night and it occurred to me that you, Mr. In The Future We Don't Have Religion, might want to see some of what you're missing out on."
"You mean besides the rules about what food to eat and who you can have sex with and the wars fought over a city some possibly divine guy was maybe born in?"
"Yeah, besides all that fun stuff. So what do you say, Booster buddy?" Beetle wrapped an arm around Booster's shoulders and pulled him close. "Want to celebrate Hanukkah with me?" Booster looked at Beetle's grin and couldn't think of anything he wanted to do more.
"Depends," he said, putting an arm of his own around Beetle's shoulders. "Is there Hanukkah food?"
"What's this?" Rani squinted at the coin, noticing almost immediately that the gold color was fake, a foil covering. She found the edge and peeled it back, revealing... "Chocolate?"
"Don't eat it just yet," Rip cautioned, stilly divvying up the remainder of the gelt between Booster, Rani, and himself. "It's not just for eating, you can play a game with it too."
Rani considered this. "What kind of game?" Rip grinned, and pulled out a painted wooden top. Booster watched him explain the rules to Rani, along with the meaning of the symbols, bemused by the Time Master's enthusiasm. Usually Rip was so stern and serious, absolutely no fun at all, and now suddenly he was smiling, and actually happy about something!
It just figured it would be something Booster didn't want to be happy about.
Not that he didn't want to be happy, he just - it wasn't the best time of year. Brought up a lot of memories, things he hadn't yet found a way to remember without getting suckerpunched by grief. Pretending to be happy about it for Rani's sake wasn't going to be fun. Or easy.
"Mikey?" Booster blinked, realizing he'd stopped paying attention. Rani was holding the dreidel out to him, expectantly. "It's your turn."
His stomach twisted in on itself. It was so easy to look at her and remember Ted doing the same thing, smirking, knowing Booster still hadn't figured out how to get a controlled spin from the blunt-tipped little top. How was he supposed to sit here and play with her and not think about how he'd never see Ted do that again? Booster swallowed against a tightness in his throat. He didn't think he could. "I don't know, Rani..."
"Come on, Booster, where's your holiday spirit?"
Booster gaped at Rip. What kind of alternate universe had he been flung into that Rip Hunter, stick in the mud extraordionairre, was asking him that question?
Rani frowned. "What's wrong, Mikey?"
And now even Rani was noticing something up with him. Grife, he must be worse off than he'd thought. Sighing, he cleared his head of his thoughts. This had nothing to do with Ted, it was just a little kid that wanted to play a game with her... with her guardians. He could do that. "Nothing's wrong, Rani. But I've gotta warn you, I haven't lost a game of dreidel in years, and I'm not gonna to easy on you just because you're new to the game."
Rani's eyes narrowed, and she grinned. "We'll see about that."
Twenty minutes later they certainly had. The mound of gelt piled up in front of Rani wasn't a foot tall or anything (though Booster wondered for a moment if it might have been, if she hadn't occasionally eaten a few of her playing pieces), but it was impressive. Booster, for his part, had only one piece left, and was trying to decide between eating it and forfeiting, or taking one last spin of the dreidel, on the off chance he might not lose it.
Rip, who had already given up, shook his head and grinned. "Forget it, Gold, there's no way you're making a comeback this late in the game."
"I could!" Booster protested automatically. Then he looked at Rani's pile again. "I'd just... rather eat my gelt, than bet it." With that, he tore open the foil and ate the chocolate before he could change his mind.
"I won!" Rani cheered. Setting aside some of her gelt for later, she unwrapped one and asked, "Is there any other stuff to eat at Hanukkah?"
"Well," Rip started to say as Skeets floated into the room.
"Sir, I've been looking for you," Skeets said before it could take in the scene. "There's - oh." It considered the pile of gelt, the little stubs of candles still burning away in the menorah, and finally Booster. "You're celebrating Hanukkah." It was amazing how that flat, robotic voice could sound so judgemental without any change in tone.
"It's fun," Rani insisted.
Skeets dropped down to her level. "Fun it may be, but it is also a trying time of year for - "
"Skeets, it's fine," Booster said, pulling it out of Rani's face.
"But - "
"It's fine," he insisted, voice low, holding Skeets close to his face so he could get a good look at Booster's sincerity. And he was sincere, unexpectedly. Playing dreidel with Rani and Rip had been fun, had been so different from how he played it with Ted that he eventually stopped comparing them. And without that to drag his mood down, he was honestly enjoying himself. It was a big improvement over the grieving he'd done by candlelight the last few nights. "We were just discussing what food to make next. Any suggestions?"
Skeets seemed flummoxed. "Oh. Well. If you're sure - "
"I am."
"Then, might I suggest latkes? After all that chocolate, I think you could do with a more... savory holiday treat."
Booster grinned. "Sounds good. Rip?"
He was frowning, and had clearly caught some of the implications of what Skeets had been about to say. Booster kept up the smile until Rip got the message to back off, and answered his question. "I can make it, but I've never been able to duplicate the recipe I grew up on. They refused to tell me the recipe."
"Same here," Booster grumbled. "And it's not like I can just call him up and ask - " Booster cut himself off, staring at Skeets, still held in his hands.
After a moment, Skeets said, "Might I remind you, sir, that you do own a time machine?"
"Prank Max... watchtower duty... hm, I should make two of those... steal J'onn's chocos... go ice skating drunk... prank Guy... and I think that should do it!" Booster finished folding up the squares of paper he'd written on, grinning to himself. Their version of dreidel was hardly traditional, but in his eyes it was way more fun. You didn't know until the end whether the notes the other guy had written were for gifts or dares (though with Ted, it was usually dares), so the object of the game wasn't to get all the "gelt," but to try to keep the best ones and get rid of the worst. And Booster very carefully folded his notes in such a way that he could tell just by looking at the outside whether it was one he wanted to keep or one he wouldn't mind losing to the pot.
"Hey, Ted, where's those latkes?" he called out, sorting through the dozen-odd dreidels Ted had somehow managed to get his hands on over the years. They came in all sizes and materials, and all of them refused to spin properly, except for one. Now, if he could just find it... aha! There it was. "Ted?" He hadn't answered before...
A door opened somewhere in the house, and Booster could hear Ted laughing. Relieved by the familiar sound, he followed it to the kitchen, where he found Ted smiling to himself over a pan of sizzling oil, taking out the last latke to cool. Booster breathed in deep and sighed. Something about the smell of frying potatoes was incredibly soothing, not to mention mouth-watering. He grabbed one of the already cool latkes, spooned applesauce onto it, and took a bite.
"Mmm," he moaned around the mouthful. Ted glanced over at him, and his smile went a little secretive. Booster made a face; sure, it was good, but that didn't mean you had to gloat about it, or refuse to give away the recipe. "You know," Booster said confidently, "one of these days, you're gonna give me that recipe."
Ted's smile widened. "You might just be right about that."
Booster returned what appeared to be only moments later, carrying a bag of cooking supplies. He paused every so often to look in the bag and laugh, as if he still couldn't believe its contents were what they were. Skeets hovered at his shoulder, equally disbelieving, if less amused about it. The two of them found Rip and Rani waiting in the kitchen, a pan of oil already heating up on the stove.
"I do know something about how it's done," Rip said dryly when Booster looked to him for an explanation. "And from the way Rani's stomach is growling, I thought we should speed up the process as much as possible." Rani, with half a piece of gelt in her mouth, shook her head at Booster from out of Rip's line of sight. That, and the anticipatory look in Rip's eye, gave Booster an idea of who really wanted things sped up here.
"No problem," Booster said, setting down his bag of ingredients. He pulled out tubs of sour cream and applesauce, set aside a bottle of oil with a muttered, "Guess we don't need this anymore," and slowly, aware of his audience and with a grand flourish, pulled out... a bag of frozen shredded hash browns.
Rip stared at it blankly. "You're joking."
"Afraid not! Turns out the recipe is "let thaw, then fry"," Booster said, grinning. "No wonder he always laughed when I asked him how he made them."
Rip rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. "You'd better hope those are already thawed, then. I don't know how much longer Rani is willing to wait." Again, Rani shook her head. Booster barely resisted the urge to laugh.
"Don't worry, they're plenty thawed. You want to help me make them, Rani?"
"You don't want me holding a candle, but this is okay?" Rani looked skeptical, but after a moment abandoned her chocolate to help Booster fold the defrosted potatoes into patties for frying. Rip watched them, smiling secretively to himself, and barely looked away as Michelle came into the room.
"Sorry I'm late," she apologized to Rip, "I got your message while I was out shopping, and there was a lot of traffic for the five miles or so before I got to the desert. What's going on?"
"Hanukkah," he said, pulling out a chair for her. "Thought you might want to join in."
Michelle wrinkled her nose. "Hanu-what now?"
Rip blinked, dumbfounded. "You've never heard of - you didn't do this when you were younger?" He held out a hand to encompass the whole of the room, gold foil wrappers and melted stumps of candles and people complaining about their potato-scented hands while the latkes fried. "None of this?"
Michelle took it all in and shrugged. "Nope. But it looks like fun, I bet Michael picked it up from one of his friends in this time period." Setting her shopping down, Michelle joined Booster and Rani by the stove, and within a minute was making latkes of her own. Rip looked at Booster, who seemed more obviously happy now than he had been in weeks, thought about what Skeets had nearly said, and it suddenly made sense.
"Yeah," he said to himself, "I bet that's exactly what he did."