Penguins and Pastries (Sean)

"Oh, yeah, of course," Amos replied, feeling strangely invigorated after his booth-nap. He scurried behind the counter and stopped by the sink to put a generous pile of hand sanitizer into his palm. He rubbed his hands together vigorously.

"Cream or soy?" He asked dutifully, reaching one scrawny arm above his head to pluck a clean mug from the rack. He filled the mug with coffee and turned back to the older man. "If you want sweetener, there's raw sugar, stevia, honey, and agave nectar." He nudged the container very slightly across the counter.

"Having a good, er, holiday?" He asked politely. Amos was, in fact, Jewish through his father, but his family was secular and Amos had never been able to bring himself to feel very seriously about it either way. His mother had always celebrated Christmas, and even that held no thrill for him anymore.

Still, it was relevant, and it gave him something to do other than stare blankly.

Amos grabbed the pitcher of cream from the shelf and placed it on the counter next to the sweetener.

"Not an imposition, Doc. It's my job." He punctuated this statement with another dorky, adolescent grin. "But I find that people, uh, generally prefer to add their own."

Amos drank his coffee black, and he had never gotten the hang of pouring stuff into coffee (other than more coffee).

He waited attentively for the older man's answer, nodding immediately upon being replied to. Force of habit.

"That's good," he murmured, folding his lanky arms on the counter at his place beside the register. "I hope you, um, enjoy your... you know, time off, and all."

His fidgeting hands found each other as he answered the question.

"Well, dad and Rochelle sent me a Chanukah gift in the mail," he began slowly. "They always get me a Barnes & Noble gift card. So I bought some stuff. I got an updated, um, field guide to birds of New England that I'm really enjoying."

Amos's father was a high-ranking executive at a well-known publishing company; according to him, money was an acceptable replacement for actual parental affection.

Thinking about his father next to Dr. Neville was odd for Amos, because the other man had always felt more like a father to him than his own. He imagined this was a common feeling among Hammel students, and even some staff -- Doc was personable, knowledgeable, comforting. He always seemed to have the time.

Amos didn't really mind sharing.

"Um, we still have the limited edition pumpkin rolls," he supplied after a while in what he hoped was a helpful tone. "And the, erm, gingerbread muffins are really popular this time of year."

Once the older man had finished fixing his own coffee to his preference, Amos took the cream carefully and placed it back on the shelf behind the counter.

"Oh, sure!"

He slid open the door to the back of the pastry case and grabbed one gingerbread muffin and one maple-glazed pumpkin roll with some thick napkins.

"Did you, erm, want those in a box, or is this for here?" He asked, waiting only for the word.

"Um, if you're, I mean, if you're planning on bird watching, I would suggest getting a nice pair of binoculars, maybe. At least, er, 7x35. Those would be good for just bird watching. And a field guide. I got mine at Barnes & Noble, and it, um, came with a checklist in the back."

He paused, realizing that he had just talked an awful lot. Then, with some hesitation, he added:

"You know, so you can keep track of which birds you've, um, seen."

This was obvious, of course, but it's not like he would be able to tell Doc many things about any subject that he wouldn't already know. He'd said much more embarrassing things in his relatively short lifetime.

"Th-there are lots of chickadees around this year," he added with a small smile. "I saw some, uh, black-capped ones yesterday afternoon."