When It's Time

Chapter Eleven

Quick note: I'm not Jewish so I don't know that much about Hanukkah. If I've got the wrong idea about celebrations please let me know so I can correct everything I need to. Thank you!

Jeremy yawned and looked around his room languidly. It was 9:13am on a Saturday morning and the first thing he noticed was that Michael wasn't asleep next to him. He frowned, Michael never got up this early at the weekend. Jeremy ran a hand through his hair and looked around for a note, sure enough, he found one on his dresser. It read: Happy Hanukkah Jer! I'm just out buying supplies, hopefully I'll be back before you wake up. It concluded with a love heart.

He sat up and stretched. He should have guessed where Michael was, he was obsessed with latkes and must have been making sure his favourite ingredients were in plentiful supply. He smiled at the memory of the first time they had celebrated together and how Michael had immediately fallen in love with the cheddar potato latkes they had made. He'd liked them so much that he pocketed nearly a whole plateful of them so he could eat them for lunch at school the next day. Jeremy's smile faded as he remembered it had been his mother who had made those latkes. Not like he cared. He was just stating a fact. She had always been the one most invested in the celebrations; she would make the food, buy the candles and presents along with decorations and games. When she left it had been Michael who made sure all that stuff happened as Jeremy's father seemed to have no interest in going out of his way to make the celebrations special.

That's when he heard Michael barging through the front door. Jeremy smiled, throwing his pyjama shirt on and heading downstairs to greet his boyfriend.

The hoodie clad teen was standing with his back to the doorway unpacking shopping bags. Jeremy wrapped his arms around his boyfriend's waist and tucking his hands into the front pocket of the red hoodie, nuzzling into the crook of Michael's neck.

"Mmm, morning Jear bear. You sleep well?"

His voice was muffled by Michael's hoodie, "You haven't called me that in years, I thought you'd forgotten about it. And I slept real good, thanks."

Michael snorted, "I hadn't forgotten, it's your contact name in my phone."

Jeremy grinned, squeezing his arms tighter, "You'll never guess what my contact name for you is so don't even bother."

"Fair enough."

"Umm, Mikey, why did you buy chocolate chips?" Jeremy unwound his arms so he could pick up the packet of chocolate drops, just to check it wasn't like, a hologram or something.

Michael turned around and pecked his lover's lips quickly, "Ok so hear me out, chocolate chip latkes."

Jeremy deadpanned him, "Michael, no."

"Michael yes. I have to admit even I was slightly surprised by my own genius when I came up with this but trust me, it's going to be fabulous."

Jeremy rolled his eyes, "Whatever you say man. Oi, did you buy any gelt?"

Michael grinned, smacking a 2Kg bag of chocolate coins onto the table, receiving a high five from his boyfriend.

While chocolate coins are generally given to children during Hanukkah, the boys were fiercely competitive when playing to gain as many chocolate coins as they could with a dreidel toy. Naturally, they always ended up eating each other's coins anyway but they had loved playing the game ever since they were kids.

Michael fished a packet of jelly donuts out of one of the bags, "You wanna go play a morning round of AotD before we decorate?"

"Yes, let's do it!" Jeremy took Michael's hand and led them into the lounge room where they booted up the game. They tried playing through level 13 (the game had sixteen levels but only fifteen of those were part of the actual plot, thirteen was a bonus level set on an aeroplane that required the most strategic planning and skilled gameplay to complete but you didn't have to pass the level to go on to the next one. Of course, Jeremy and Michael, being honest and valiant gamers, had vowed not to progress until they beat level thirteen. This had been proving more difficult than anticipated). They ate jelly donuts while they played which didn't seem to be improving their reaction time.