It had been a fucking bitch of a day, if Theo did say so himself. Summer always took it out of him, what with the pressure to write intensifying in the absence of a full class load. He'd been warned again and again that that was the trade-off one made in the world of academia, but once again, he hadn't listened to anyone but his own hard-headed self. If he could go back and punch his twenty-five-year-old self in the kishkas, he would.
For now, though, it seemed he'd have to settle for yelling at his nephews. "Uncle Theo!" eleven-year-old Philip shouted as Theo walked through the entranceway of Hillel's social hall. "Hey, Uncle Theo! How's it hangin'?"

"Yeah, how's it hangin'?" Caleb piped up from his seat next to his brother. "OW! Mom, he kicked me!" He glared at Philip and did something under the table that made his brother yelp in reply. "See? When you kick me, I kick you back."

"Mom, Caleb copied me and then he kicked me!" Philip complained. "Make him stop."

On Caleb's other side, Theo's younger sister Dinah rolled her eyes and ran a hand through her dark curls. "Don't make me have to separate you two." She fixed her sons with the kind of look that had made Theo nearly pee himself even when he was twelve and she was only four, then gave Theo a (thankfully) much kinder look. "Hey, Theo. Didn't know if you were gonna make it."

"I took the evening off." Theo sat down across from her at the all-purpose table, which was just as scratched and worn as the ones he remembered from Hebrew school. Ditto the chair, which dug into his ass and which he strongly suspected was made for fifth-graders. "I can do my grading tomorrow."

"But it's summer," Caleb said. "Right, Dad?" He turned his face up to look at his father, who stopped drawing an impromptu tic-tac-toe board on his hand at the question.

"Your uncle's talking about summer classes," Vince said. "What is it this year, Theo? Intro to Middle Eastern Studies?"

"Yeah. Gimme that, would you?" Theo held out his hand, palm-up, for the pen. Vince deposited it on top, and Theo immediately started drawing a historically-accurate hangman on the underside of his forearm. "It's Middle Eastern Studies for this session, then I'm giving a senior seminar in August about Sumerian technology and warfare. Should be a more interesting group than the idiots I'm teaching now." Around him, the buzz of various people entering and sitting down dissolved into an almost pleasant hum of scraping chairs and low conversation.

Of course, just when Theo was starting to relax, that whole vibe was rudely interrupted by the sound of someone banging on a pot. "Shalom, everyone!" Omer Rabin called out from his usual position at the front of the room. As usual, his particular brand of fake Hebrew-English patois made Theo want to rip someone's head off – how long had it been since the guy last went to Israel, much less spoke Hebrew regularly? Hell, Omer's younger brother was better-versed in the culture than he was, and he'd been born in America. "For those of you who weren't at ma'ariv -" and here, Theo could swear Omer was looking straight at him – "Shabbat Shalom, and let's get started with the Kaddish."

"Okay," Theo muttered back as Omer bustled about, getting everything ready. "Dee, are the leprechauns here yet?"

"Jeez, Uncle Theo, that's racist!" Phil said.

"I didn't ask for your opinion, Philly," Theo shot back, ruffling his nephew's hair across the table. "Besides, it's only racist if I make some comment about them being Jewish, and…well. Anyway, what else am I supposed to call them? The Three Bs? Scions of the IRA? The Good, the Bad, and the Unintelligible?"

"Theo!" Dinah exclaimed as Vince collapsed into laughter so extreme that he nearly fell off his chair. "That was uncalled for." She raised an eyebrow in Vince's general direction. "No matter how immature my husband wants to be about it."

"Don't touch my hair, Uncle Theo."

"Once again, Phil, not the response I was going for," Theo said.

"So what?" Phil crossed his arms and gave Theo a pretty good imitation of one of his mom's weaker glares. "You asked if they're here. They're here, okay? They got here a while ago." He jerked his thumb backwards at a table behind them.

Dinah clamped a hand over Phil's shoulder. Theo narrowly avoided wincing. Experience with that particular move had taught him how much it hurt. "Philip Tuvia Adler-Derensky, you apologize to your uncle for interrupting and being rude."

"I'm sorry, Uncle Theo."

"No big deal. Let go of him, Dee – I think he's learned his lesson."

"Fine," Dinah said, releasing Phil's arm. Caleb giggled uncontrollably. "Caley, it's not nice to laugh at people's pain."

"Yeah, I know, but Phil isn't people. Phil's Phil," Caleb replied. Theo blinked at him. If he wasn't careful, he was going to have an existentialist – or at least some approximation of one – for a nephew. "That means I can be a jerk to him."

"No, it doesn't," Theo said. "Vince, you know how much I hate to quote Family Guy –"

"You love it," Vince interjected.

" – but as I was saying, get off your ass and do some parenting."

"Yeah, yeah. If my kids weren't sitting right here, I'd be showing you the rude side of my hand right now." Vince ruffled Caleb's curls, making his younger son squeal. "Ready for dinner, buddy?"

"Speaking of, what are we having?" Theo craned his neck and searched the tables for the Irishmen whom he termed 'the leprechauns', finding them a few rows back. "Hey, Boaz!" he called. "You know what we're having?"

"Search me," Boaz Budin yelled back. "Oi, Benny!" He turned his head and gestured towards his brother, who was coming out of the entrance to the kitchen. "What're we having?"

"Oh, it's a treat today," Benny said. As usual, with his apron and trusty red T-shirt on, he looked like a ginger-headed Santa Claus – only with more of a belly. Theo didn't know a kid alive who didn't like to bounce on it, including his incorrigible nephews. "We're doing a kosher English dinner!"

"Conquerers' food?" Boaz dramatically pressed the back of his hand against his forehead. "Oh, Benny, you're breaking m'heart!"

"You say that now, but you'll be eatin' the spotted Dick like everyone else." Benny dusted some nonexistent flour off his hands and sauntered back into the kitchen, presumably to put the finishing touches on some dish or other. He really was the best cook Theo had ever met, and that was saying a lot.

"Va'y'khulu ha'shishi," Omer sang out, interrupting everyone's conversation, "va'y'khulu ha'shama'im v'ha-aretz…"

"Finally," Phil said, and tugged his father's sleeve. "He took forever!"

"He'll take forever just to finish one prayer, Philly. I doubt you'll be disappointed." Theo leaned across the table and smirked at his sister. "You know, the way he sings, I always think he's trying to say 'come here, Cthulhu' instead of starting the Kaddish."

"Oh my God, Theo. We're in public." Dinah rested her chin on her hands. "Don't make me have to muzzle you."

Theo obligingly shut up for the remainder of the prayer, but he was just as relieved as Phil and Caleb were (judging by the fact that they had resumed kicking each other under the table) when Omer finished droning and pronounced the final "Amen," the cue for everyone to raise their glasses of grape juice and/or wine and drink heartily.

"Good," Omer said, just as he always did – who was he complimenting, anyway? – and picked up his trusty pot and spoon, then shuffled over to the door. "All right, everyone who's hungry, come and eat!" he shouted. He held the spoon high, then took a few hearty whacks at the pot with it.

Dinah cringed. "He does realize that's a Passover thing, doesn't he?"

"Somehow, I don't think you'll ever change his mind about that," Theo answered.

"Come and eat!" Omer said one last time, lowering the spoon and turning around to go back to his position at the front of the room. "Come in!"

And then, much to everyone's everlasting surprise, someone did.

Notes: Omer's prayer is the traditional (and long-winded) Hebrew prayer over wine, sung on the evening of the Sabbath. It's called the Kaddish - or Kiddush, if you're going for the Yiddish. Sounds weirdly like Khuzdul, doesn't it? ;) Ma'ariv is the evening prayer service, and kishkas = nads.