christmas can even be a hanukkah thing [open]

december 9th 2003

This year was a particularly hard year for his parents. No one said anything but Zeke did the math, and Brian Heller would be thirty this year if he was still around.

He always called his brother by his full name- it made him feel less like a personal ghost and more of a regular ghost, you know, like the kind you might find lurking around a community graveyard. Those he could deal with no problem, but sometimes it scared him how much his dead brother still haunted his parents' eyes.

Things always got worse around the holidays, for obvious reasons. He hated it when his mom looked at him like she was trying to see someone else through him, and he knew from old photos he found in grandma's attic how much they looked alike as brothers. The most unfair thing about it all is he couldn't even find it in him to be upset at her, at them both. It wasn't his fault, but it wasn't really theirs either. It was just a sucky situation. Most of winter break would be quiet, but at least he wouldn't be alone with his parents on Christmas with family coming over.

And family coming over was really why he was trudging through Shackamaxon instead of being indoors, where it was warm. Some of his no-maj cousins were visiting for the first time since they moved to Walnut Creek, and while he was warned not to bring any magical trinkets home for them to keep, he thought he could at least get away with getting them some magical candy or something. No evidence, no problem.

Stopping in front of one of the candy stalls where he decided to buy some voice-changing candies, he pulled his scarf tighter around him and shoved his hands into the pockets of his parka to dig for coins, wishing he'd remembered to bring gloves. The winter market was pretty and all, but all he wanted to do was to get this over with and sit in front of a fire with a cup of hot chocolate.

"Shit." Of course he had to be a few coins short the one time he bothered to come to Shackamaxon. Zeke could feel his ears getting hot from the embarrassment and he kept his head down. Hesitantly, he shuffled a bit closer to the person next to him and muttered as inconspicuously as he could, "You wouldn't happen to have any extra change, would ya?"

Obviously they didn’t have this stuff in San Jose -- or, he supposed, they might, but he’d never met another wizard there, so probably they didn’t. Adam couldn’t think of a less magical place. A toilet in Shackamaxon had more inherent charm than the whole of San Jose. Not that that was hard.

He wasn’t sure he thought too highly of the inherent charm of Shackamaxon in the first place -- it was all very well that the streets were cobbled and the entrance was a waterfall and the entire thing was held up by a massive underground tree, but there weren’t any cars and about every single store felt like it was owned by an extremely old married couple that had devoted the best years of their life to making sure their shop was smoky, dim, and lacking in any merchandise of value or meaning to him. He’d tried everything -- the outdoorsy store, the jewelry store, the clock store, even the weed store -- and had wound up buying candy. Again.

Though Adam had had his fill of wizard bullshit for possibly his entire life -- he’d never, ever seen the appeal of candies that popped or exploded or fizzed even when they weren’t literally popping, exploding, or fizzing -- his sister got it twice a year, for her birthday and for Christmas, and still seemed to like it. He was inspecting the gummy worms (“They really crawl!”) when mop-head next to him sidled in.

Adam wouldn’t have obliged if it had been anybody else, but Zeke Heller had been, like, stalking him all year, so he felt like he might actually be paid back. He grunted and dug in his jeans pocket for his coins. (One of his roommates had gotten him a coin purse for early Christmas because it annoyed him so much that Adam just carried around loose change, but Adam would die before he used a coin purse and, anyway, he could get one anytime from one of his uncles bringing cheap tourist stuff back from Vietnam. Most of the time he just left it in dollar bills and got it converted in the village anyway.)

“How much you need?” he said, counting out some sickles -- he pulled his handful of coins close to his chest and gave Zeke a suspicious look and a raised pointer finger. “You gonna pay me back?”

Aw damn, it was Adam. Great. Screw the gloves, he wanted a hat or something to hide his face. Why didn't he wear a jacket with a hood?!

The problem with teenage ego was that he really liked the older boy, and fumbling around for coins wasn't really how Zeke wanted Adam to see him outside of school. Adam was cool, he could skateboard, and he had a pretty lasting disdain for most things magic that seemed too much of an effort to be for show. So yeah, Zeke wished he was more like Adam. He still wanted to care about things, like ghost stories and making maps, but Adam probably had things he cared about too he's just better at pretending not to, and that's what he wanted.

But he didn't know how to, like, say that that to him without coming off all sappy. He doesn't think he's a crybaby, but he's also never tested that hypothesis. How was he supposed to phrase it anyway? 'Hey I've never know my dead brother who's old enough to be my dad probably, but I've always wanted one and you're really cool and I think maybe I'm projecting some of the dead brother sentiments onto you!' Yeah, right.

At this point Zeke was realising that he's probably spent far too long gawping and not saying anything and the vendor, who previously looked amused, was starting to get impatient. He reached his hand out to accept the coins, a sullen look now threatening to appear on his face. "I'm only three sickles short," he said defensively, "it's not like I'm gonna skip the state border or something for three sickles." Not like he was going to do anything like that for his cousins anyway. They were nice, but that's about as much affection he could summon for them.

With the vendor paid and the candy in hand, it was probably his cue to shut up, maybe even offer Adam a piece of candy as a peace offering. But as usual, Zeke found trouble with that and continued mouthing off, "No, I'm just gonna take your money and pretend we don't run into each other like five days of the week." He wanted to roll his eyes. Was it rude to roll his eyes at a seventh year? Screw it, he's doing it anyway. They're not in school and he felt fairly safe, trusting that Adam isn't like one of those self-important student senators.

it is criminal how long i took to reply to this i deeply apologise

Three sickles. Adam counted them out and dumped them in Zeke’s outstretched hand, intending to just move on, but Zeke tagged along after him, still snarking, and Adam rolled his eyes, thus missing that Zeke had done the same. “Smartass,” he grumbled, mostly to grumble – he had always respected that, in a kid – “We wouldn’t run into each other five days of the week if you would find your own place to skate, you know. I was here first, so I get like, seniority.”

He didn’t particularly begrudge Zeke Heller his use of all the dubiously safe places Adam had picked to skate around – random patches of the area where it was, if not suited for skateboarding, at least not unsuited for it. Zeke kept to himself, didn’t carry on when he fell down, and didn’t bother Adam. Once or twice they’d made eye contact and it hadn’t been 100% awkward. They’d stood at opposite ends of the labyrinth in the garden once and watched two birds in the middle fight over some spilled potato chips.

Adam inspected a bag of rock candy to make sure it didn’t include real rocks, or anything, and stuck it in the crook of his arm with the gummy worms. “Christmas shopping?” he guessed, as long as Zeke wasn’t going anywhere. He wagged his elbow to demonstrate the candy there – “Tryna pick stuff that won’t blow anyone’s teeth out.” He did not think his mother would find that funny. His sister already needed dental work; she had too many teeth for her mouth.

He moved along, skipping straight over the jelly beans (he hated those) and picking up a pack of sour-cherry extra-bubble gum.

Zeke puffed out his chest just a tiny bit. Adam said smartass, but was that some sort of grudging respect he heard in his voice? Surely it had to be. Feeling pleased with himself, he scratched the tip of his nose with the back of his finger, "Dude, we live on top of a mountain and somehow you also live in a tree. There aren't that many great places to skate that I won't fall and break my brain." It was mostly his lack of skill that caused him to wipe out more than he could stay on the board, probably, but he didn't want to admit that he wasn't just naturally talented at everything.

"Sorta," he agreed, rummaging through his current spoils, "they're for my no-maj cousins when they come visit. Something about wanting Christmas on the beach this year or something." Zeke shrugged. Their house wasn't even anywhere near the coast. He stuffed the voice-changing candy in his left pocket, and stuff he bought for himself in his right.

Somehow Adam didn't seem to be in a hurry to shoo him off, and Zeke wasn't about to excuse himself. How many chances did fourth years like him get to hang out with seventh years? All of none, that's how many. His eyes widened when Adam skipped over the jelly beans, "Whoa, you don't like jelly beans? What's not to like?!" They were his favourite candy! Not the gross ones they had from across the pond, Battie Pots or something gross sounding, nice ones, with flavours like banana creme pie and toffee apple and cola. Yum.

He didn't dwell on the topic of candy for too long, looping back to skating quickly. "And yeah, sure you get seniority and all that, but I don't think my parents would want to lose another kid to an accident if I ended up skating somewhere else and did break my brain," he tacked on, not realising this was a topic that could make someone else feel uncomfortable. "Hey, will you show me that trick you did last time? The one where you flipped your board and did some cool fancy kick?" He gestured with his hands feebly, feeling sure that he wasn't getting his point across.

“So wear a helmet and quit bitchin’,” Adam suggested, although he knew well enough that wearing a helmet didn’t eliminate the possibility of skating injuries, broken brains or not. He’d had enough scrapes and fumbles over the years to have accumulated a few scars – one of them stretched all the way over his knee and down his shin; he was still kind of embarrassed about the hysterics he’d had when he got it, at least for the ten minutes it’d taken to get him out of the fence and call his mom, but his friends had all generously decided to pretend it hadn’t happened.

Zeke had no-maj cousins; Adam, intrigued despite himself, raised his eyebrows – “Your no-maj cousins know jack about magic?” he said. He had always been morbidly curious about how families like that worked. “Where you live, anyway, Santa Cruz?” Zeke was from somewhere near him, right? At least, they’d been on the same bus back from Thanksgiving.

He had been willing to put up with some chatter – why did kids chatter so? Adam hadn’t been like that when he was fourteen – but he was less willing to have to defend his candy choices. “What?” he said, “What do you care? More for you.” He put the bubble gum back and picked a up pack of banana-nut flavor instead – his sister was developing concerningly into one of those girls that always chewed gum, but she was about to get braces and he felt bad for her.

His mophead shadow carried on – back to skating. This felt suspiciously like a guilt trip, even if it was true – Adam frowned a little. “Uhh,” he said, “Look, I don’t really care where you skate if you’re, like, chill about it.” And Zeke, generally, was. As soon as he’d thought that, Zeke began to be less chill about it – Adam rubbed one hand down his cheek. What had he done to deserve this? Was this some kind of karmic, cosmic punishment for bullying his cousins when he babysat them?

“What,” he said, “heelflip?” The cool fancy kick sounded a little less like him and a little more like he’d had to scramble midair for a second, but if the shoe fit, he was going to take it. For the first time, he turned to scrutinize the younger boy, brow furrowed thoughtfully. “Uh,” he said, “I guess. Like… not right now.”