Sophie and Fitz live together. Platonically? Romantically? Up to reader interpretation, though I wrote it as platonic. Anyway, just some Hanukkah fluff to ward off all the Christmas fics I'll inevitably be seeing soon.
How is Chanukkah spelled? Who knows, least of all me.
Unfortunately, Sophie can't bake. It's not that she hasn't tried. Her human father tried to teach her, Edaline tried, every recipe stuck perfectly in her head, but it never got recreated. Something always went wrong. Why did something always go wrong? The food would burn, or there would be too much of one ingredient, or not enough of an ingredient- even though Sophie double checked all the measurements- or an eggshell would end up in the batter. Her friends always joked that eventually, they would all find something Sophie was bad at- and apparently, that something was baking.
Fortunately, Fitz Vacker knew how to bake, and he knew how to bake well. Sophie had no idea how he took all those ingredients that were weird and gross individually and then combined it into yet another Chanukkah miracle, but he managed it. Somehow. So if Sophie started craving something delicious, Fitz was more than happy to bake it for her.
And then steal half her serving, but she appreciated him anyway.
Unfortunately, his immune system was being extremely anti-semetic and got him sick the day Chanukkah started. He tried to insist on doing all the baking anyway, but Sophie insisted the idiot lie down before he hurt himself. She insisted she could handle it, he just needed to rest.
(She could not handle it.)
Okay, so she polished the menorah well enough- how did the thing accumulate so much wax, anyway?- and get the necessary candles. And then she stole gelt from Biana- uhh, got more gelt than seemed wise, but would taste so good. Dreidels were set out, fuzzy socks with alicorns were wrapped, and everything was set in place.
Everything except the food that was both Sophie's best friend and worst enemy. A joy to eat. A horror to bake.
Latkes.
It seemed easy enough, right? Grate the potatoes, soak them, fry them, eat them. Simple. Delicious.
Somehow still too complicated for Sophie Foster.
She wrung the potato mixture out after they finished soaking. Then put them in a bowl to add the other ingredients. Then started frying them in the skillet. For once, she was confident in her abilities.
And then the confidence fell apart. Along with the latkes.
Why were the latkes falling apart!? Why were the latkes falling apart!?
"Ugh! Dammit," Sophie yelled, staring hopelessly at the mess before her. "Dammit, dammit-"
Fitz would not be happy. She wanted to give him the best Chanukkah ever, wanted to handle everything herself so he didn't have to be stressed, but of course she screwed it up.
She glared at the latkes as though they had intentionally sabotaged her.
"Soph!" she heard from upstairs. Right. Her yelling might not have been the most comforting thing.
"I'm fine!" Sophie called back. Paused. "The latkes aren't."
Ey sent another scathing look before turning off the stove and dumping the disaster in the trash. She saved the whole world! Why couldn't she make a simple latke? Furiously, she kicked the wall, but that accomplished nothing other than hurting her foot. With a huff, Sophie hopped upstairs.
"Sorry, Fitz. Sorry. The latkes totally refused to stay in one piece, I don't think I could even really call them latkes. Potato mush."
"You probably didn't dry them off well enough. You always have to wring it out more times than you think you do."
"Oh." Well, great. That's what she screwed up. Just great. "Sorry."
"Hey, it's all good. At least you didn't set the kitchen on fire."
"Wow, you sure had a lot of faith in me."
He looked her in the eye. "Sophie, I love you, but you cannot bake."
"Yeah, I know," she sighed.
"Do you want to call Biana and Maruca and see if they're willing to come over for dinner? Maruca makes pretty good latkes, we can just eat hers. I mean, sure, Bi's probably gonna beat us at dreidal, but if we chea-uh, try really hard, I'm sure we can beat her."
Sophie cracked a smile. It was a well accepted fact that no one would ever beat Biana. "Okay, that sounds good."
Sure enough, Biana won at dreidal. But Fitz loved his new fuzzy socks, and Sophie loved Maruca's latkes, and by the end, she felt pretty fortunate to have had a good first night of Chanukkah.
Happy Hanukkah, enjoy your latkes, cheat at dreidal. That is all.