Time Warp: Happy Anti-Christmas [Sean, Josh]

In the five or so turns, Tomer was losing, and an orange Starburst was tucked into his cheek. Vivy tended to have the best luck with the dreidel, but Abby had managed to get both gimel and hei, or take all and take half. Tomer didn't mind, it was just a game, and moreover, one he was used to losing. Back before Noah and Jeremiah had become too old or dignified or whatever for dreidel, they'd both had the same sort of knack as Rivka.

When Sean came over to join them, the girls cheered, and Tomer managed a smile. He liked Uncle Josh's friend a great deal. The man had never pushed him into conversation and didn't tease like some of the other adults did when he was pulled out of hiding. The children knew Sean was a telepath too, but since he rarely said anything that brought attention to it they didn't think much about it. Tomer had once wondered if his thoughts were boring to listen to, but he hadn't had the nerve to ask in case the answer was yes.

Abby put together a pile of Starbursts for Sean and after everyone had put a piece in the middle, handed the dreidel to him.

"Does your school have ice skating?" Vivy asked Sean, eyes bright. The three of them had just gone the afternoon before. "Tomer's really good at it. He doesn't fall."

"I only skate in a line," he murmured, stacking his Starbursts in a pyramid. "You fall because you try all that stuff you see on TV."

"Mom says if I keep trying to do a triple axel she's gonna make me wear a helmet," she said gleefully. At ten, Vivy was the family daredevil and safety gear turned ordinary things into adventures. "Bee skates even better than Tomer," she added. "She can even skate backwards and she owns her own hockey skates." Rivka grinned, and Tomer knew what was coming. "Bee is Tomer's girlfriend."

"Shin, Viv." Tomer took a candy from his sister's pile and pocketed it. Rivka laughed.

"Guys." But Abby was smiling too. As Vivy took her turn, she asked Sean, "Has anything fun happened at your school?"

It was kind of like Hogwarts mixed with Sky High. Unlike a lot of people who were familiar with the X-Men, Tomer didn't equate Hammel with Xavier's Institute for Higher Learning, because classroom scenes or not, he didn't think of Xavier's as a real school. As in, a place where failing history would matter.

Pyramid finished, Tomer began to stack them one atop the others to see how tall he could go before they fell. Unlike his sisters, he hadn't looked up at their guest player past his first glance, though he was listening. He sometimes felt guilty about this sort of behavior. It was unfriendly and not very nice, but it was this or fake having to go to the bathroom and hiding under Abby's bed.

Sean took the proffered pile of Starbursts, glancing at the distribution of flavors for a moment. Starbursts were a constant, a candy that didn’t experiment with its flavors, and thus it was easy for the telepath to memorize which child enjoyed which flavor the most. That always played a role in how he gambled when children were involved.

After putting in a strawberry Starburst, he reached for the dreidel and, with a flick of his wrist, gave it a good spin. The telepath was a skilled card player, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to handily win games of poker and pinochle. He didn’t quite have the same ability with certain other games of luck, which was why it came as no surprise to him that the dreidel landed with nun face up. A neutral outcome, where he took nothing from the pot nor did he contribute additional Starbursts. Instead, he passed the dreidel to the next person.

“We don’t have ice skating,” he replied to Rivka. “The school doesn’t have a rink, and the water doesn’t freeze enough to let anyone ice skate.” In fact, teachers were on alert to make sure that nobody tried anything that foolish, even with the presence of cryokinetics on campus.

The telepath didn’t latch onto the word girlfriend, although he did latch onto the topic of the girl’s presence in Tomer’s life. “Is Bee in your class, Tomer?”

At the question, Sean lifted his hands, spreading them in a gesture that functioned in lieu of a shrug. “That depends on what you mean by fun.”

Josh’s presence behind him caused the telepath to shift back a bit. “You and I can join together as a team,” he offered. It was common for them to be teammates in any game that allowed them to do so, and he was always happy to spend the time with his best friend.

"A team it is," Josh agreed, placing his glass on an end table before dragging his chair across the carpet in order to settle closer to Sean. If he was going to participate he ought to remain near, after all.

"Whose turn..." Josh began as Abby turned her attention to the pot, but he was interrupted by his sister calling the girls away. That left himself and Sean against Tomer, which hardly seemed fair.

"We can start the game over," he offered in response to his nephew's query as he fetched his glass. He enjoyed teaming up with Sean, but with two of the previous players n longer involves there was no reason not to wipe the slate clean.

"Or we can pocket all the candy while nobody else is looking. We don't know what happened to it."

Blue eyes twinkled mischievously, belying any attempts at seriousness. Josh wasn't a good liar, regardless, so even if they had attempted to hide all the candy he would have been found out the moment he was questioned.

He inhaled deeply in appreciation of the smells wafting from the kitchen. His sister and nieces were certainly contributing to his waistline tonight. "Your mother has outdone herself again," he declared, sipping his wine and glancing over the pile of starbursts waiting to be redistributed by dreidel. Regardless of whether they began again or picked up where the previous group had left off this would be fun.

"So Tomer," he began, unaware of any of the previous conversation and hoping to elicit some conversation out of his taciturn nephew. "How is school? Do you have any assignments over the break?"

“People go sledding or skiing; skiing is very popular outside of the school. There are a lot of indoor activities, where it’s warmer. And the students have a big annual snowball fight.”

Why there was no skating was mysterious, but Tomer thought maybe Sean didn't like skating. If he didn't like doing it, he wouldn't know about it. Vivy's eyes shined at the idea of a school-wide snowball fight, and Tomer had an academic interest himself. As the victim of more than one malicious snowball to the head, being given an opportunity to throw back would not be unpleasant.

"I bet you could make a snowman every day," Vivy said, and that made her siblings smile. The times the Berelowitzes had made the long drive to Pittsburgh to see David's parents for Hanukkah, they'd all enjoyed filling the small yard with snowmen.

The question of whether Bee was nice made Tomer smile again, though he had to think carefully about his answer, to find something to say about her that wouldn't be further fuel for the whole girlfriend argument. "She's very nice," he said finally. "She's smart, and she's good at sports, and she likes to read."

Tomer thought Bee was pretty, too, but he wasn't going to say that. Besides, it wasn't the sort of pretty that boys said about girls they liked, just a factual sort of pretty. Bee had a cheerful smile, long dark blond hair, and somehow managed to keep her clothes in order when she was tomboying around with him and Vivy or playing kickball at recess. Even Tomer's mom said Bee was going to be a heartbreaker when she was older.

"Camping? And snowball fighting. I wanna go to your school," Vivy laughed. She was still grinning when she and Abby left in a swirl of skirts to fry the latkes.

Tomer nodded when the other two were up for starting over and pulled the candy into a pile to redistribute. When everyone had a dozen pieces, he handed the dreidel over to Sean, since he was a guest of a guest, even though he was pretty much family.

"Or we can pocket all the candy while nobody else is looking. We don't know what happened to it."

Sometimes knowing Uncle Josh was a lawyer was a little frightening. Tomer knew he was teasing, but he also knew his mom would not hesitate to turn her brother's pockets inside out the way she did her children's. But - "If you win you can keep it. And you'll probably win."

Uncle Josh trying to discretely pocket all the candy would not work. Uncle Josh saying he won it all playing dreidel with Tomer, sadly enough, would.

“If we’re to steal candy, I’d prefer to take the chocolate gelt.”

Though it wasn't said to him, Tomer felt the need to break the bad news regarding the coins sprinkled over the tables. It was partially his fault. "There isn't chocolate in them. They're plastic. Me and Vivy left some chocolate ones in our pockets last year and they went through the wash."

He smiled apologetically. "There's chocolate for dessert though."

When it was his turn, Tomer got shin again and tossed a cherry candy into the pot.

"So Tomer. How is school? Do you have any assignments over the break?"

That was a loaded question, though his uncle had no way of knowing it. Reluctantly, he said, "We're supposed to interview an old person and make them tell a story about something they did when they were our age." Tomer looked at Uncle Josh with an expression that gave some indication of how things had gone once certain people had found out about the assignment. "Mom said I should ask you."

'Ask' meaning 'begged' and 'offered actual money'. "I told her," he said, "that you're not old. Or... old enough. My teacher said a grandparent would work." Tomer rolled his eyes, but he was half smiling too. "Mom says I'm not any fun."

Knowing Sean had a younger sister too, he looked at them both and asked, "Is Vivy going to be like this when she grows up?"

Sean was aware of skating – he liked it fine, although he hadn’t gone skating in years. However, he was also aware of physics and safety concerns. The pond on Hammel campus didn’t ice over well enough; the lake also was very hit-or-miss, which meant that ice skating was a rarer pleasure. That was fine, as there were many alternate winter activities available.

The telepath smiled as Tomer described his friend, Bee. “Those are good qualities to have in a friend,” he remarked. “Your Uncle Josh isn’t one for sports, but he matches everything else on that list, and he’s the best friend I’ve ever had.”

Sean intended that as encouragement. Also to demonstrate that he had no intention to tease or to pry.

When it was his turn to spin the dreidel, the telepath gave a particularly long one. When it finally settled, he had managed to get nun again, as this was not a game that was in his favor. Thus, Sean passed the dreidel back to Tomer.

Unfortunately, Kathleen was not a stick by which any sibling relationships could be measured. The telepath considered his sister, and their relationship, to be a special case. In fact, Kathleen had very little in common with Talia, aside from a happy marriage and loving their child(ren). To Tomer, he remarked, “Everyone’s different, regardless of gender. Vivy is going to grow up and mature in a few years, and then we’ll see where her personality is.”

Sean reached out to pat his friend on the shoulder, offering silent encouragement. He knew that Bobby Bernstein’s mental decline hit the entire family hard, but particularly Josh. Since he couldn’t heal him, all he could do was offer support in small ways.

Regarding the assignment, he remarked, “Speak for yourself.” Sean was old enough to join the AARP, because they had obscenely low age markers for joining. To Tomer, he asked, “Do you have elders from Temple you could interview?”

While Sean and Tomer discussed the similarities and differences of sisters Josh finished his wine. He didn't think it was entirely fair to compare Talia to Kathleen, not least because he actually got along with his sister; whatever affectionately exasperating poking she might engage in.

However much he wished that the Neville siblings might reconcile, this wasn't a topic he wanted to discuss in depth with Tomer. Or any family member, for that matter, given the nature of some of Kathleen's judgments.

The frown that had accompanied the talk of sisters melted into a smile at the compliment paid him. "Does cycling not count, or would I have to don spandex and enter races?"

The only conceivable circumstance under which he might wear spandex was in the event of a costume party; otherwise he was afraid he might traumatize one too many people.

"But what sports does your friend play?"

He stood to refill his wine glass, but David was passing by at that moment and offered to so this for him as the host, and so he sat back down. "I hope that your grandparents are able to make it." Josh offered, watching his nephew spin. Then it was his turn, and he flicked his wrist, causing the toy to spin dizzyingly just long enough for him to exclaim, "I'm going to beat both of you, just watch." before the dreidel stopped, shin side up. He gave a melodramatic sigh as he tossed a candy into the middle, though this turned into a laugh as he passed the dreidel to Sean.

"Pride goeth before the fall, I suppose."

The question regarding one of his favorite foods morphed his expression from rueful to entertained. "It's not a type of cheese, it's a snack made with cheese. I prefer it made from cheddar, but some people use processed cheeses. It's cheese and mayo and pimentos...those are the little red peppers that are stuffed into green olives."