A Holiday Counter

Simon didn't know much about the church across the street from his synagogue, other than it was a church. A Catholic church, as it turned out. The congregations had decided to do a winter holiday food drive together since this year Christmas Eve was the same night Hanukkah began. They'd never held any events together like this before but Simon was kind of excited. He liked meeting new people and he liked helping people, so he was looking forward to it.

He was living on campus at his college now but Simon frequently went back and forth from his dorm to his house, so he knew his mom had some canned goods lying around. Not that she would miss them. She even went to the grocery store just to buy stuff for the food drive. And Rebecca would bring whatever she had at her dorm. Simon should probably do the same. He'd hit up Clary's place too to see what he could find.

By the end of their food finding, or food buying, missions, the Lewis family had enough food to fill up the trunk of their car. They drove to their synagogue where the food drive was being held since they had the bigger parking lot. They were one of the first ones there since Elaine had volunteered to help set up the whole thing, along with whoever volunteered from the church. Simon recalled his mom telling him she'd already met the woman that was supposed to help them. Guadalupe Santiago, his mom told him. Kind lady, but also tough. She was a single mother too, and had four sons, so she kind of had to be.

As soon as the car was parked, Elaine went to go find Guadalupe while Simon and Rebecca began unloading the trunk. A few minutes later, someone grunted behind them, signaling their presence.

"Hey, I'm Raphael. Our moms sent me out here to tell you to bring this stuff inside."

"Cool, I'm Rebecca. This is Simon," Rebecca said, gesturing to her brother. Upon seeing Simon's stunned silence, though, she waved a hand and actually snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Earth to Simon Lewis…"

"Hi! Yeah, I'm Simon! That's me!" Simon said ecstatically, coming out of his trance. When his mother mentioned Guadalupe had four sons, for some reason Simon imagined they'd be no older than middle school aged. He wasn't expecting that one would be around the same age as him, and Simon definitely wasn't expecting him to be this ridiculously good looking.

"Is he okay?" Raphael asked.

"Ignore my brother. He's a spaz."

Simon glared at his sister, which only made her laugh, barely holding back her knowing smile.

"So, can I help?" Raphael asked.

"Sure." "Sure!" The Lewis siblings replied, though, Simon was much more excited in his response. Rebecca rolled her eyes at her younger brother.

Inside, Raphael's brothers were helping set up the tables. Raphael whistled at them, gaining their immediate attention as they snapped their heads up at him. "There's more stuff outside." Raphael didn't even need to tell them to bring the rest. They instantly jumped up and headed towards the door.

"Oh, my god," Rebecca gasped. "How did you do that? I've been trying to train this one my whole life!"

Raphael chuckled at the affronted noise Simon made. "I didn't train them. They just like me, and I like them. They look up to me I guess."

"Huh, imagine that. Having a younger brother that actually respects you," Rebecca mused.

Instead of dignifying that with a response, Simon mimicked Rebecca's words in his best annoying sister voice.

"You two are ridiculous," Raphael said, laughing at the two of them.

"Comes with years of practice - no, wait, that sounded better in my head," Simon said as his sister and Raphael got caught up in a fit of laughter because of him.

"Glad to see you're all getting along," Elaine said, walking up to the three of them with Guadalupe.

"Being respectful, Raphael?" Guadalupe questioned.

"Of course, mamá. Siempre."

Guadalupe smiled fondly at her son as he set down the box he was carrying on one of the tables. Introductions were exchanged as Raphael's brothers brought the rest of the boxes inside. People would be arriving soon so they had to get working. There had to be a set up of different stations at the tables. Canned fruits and vegetables, tuna, soup and beans, fresh produce, meats, dairy. Everyone had to get assigned something to be in charge of.

"Raphael, why don't you take the canned fruits and vegetables," his mother suggested.

"Rebecca, can you help Ra-"

"I'll do it!" Simon interrupted his mother. "I mean, I'll - I'll help."

Rebecca leaned in close to her brother so only he would hear. "You are so not being subtle."

Simon elbowed his sister in her side. "I can help," he repeated.

Raphael raised a speculative eyebrow at him, but ended up just shrugging in agreement. "Okay, c'mon."

And Simon followed him, both of them grabbing a box to separate what they'd offer at their table and what they didn't. They had just finished cataloguing what they had, and how much, when other people and families started to show up with their donations.

Admittedly, Simon volunteered to help Raphael to try to talk to him, get to know him better. Unfortunately, that wasn't working out so well. It turned out that managing a food drive was a lot harder than Simon had anticipated. And whenever he did try to engage Raphael, he was met with short one word responses before ordering Simon with another task. Simon didn't mind Raphael bossing him around too much. He got the feeling that was just Raphael's nature, what with being the oldest of four brothers. Simon was upset, though, that Raphael seemed disinterested in him.

"You've been awfully quiet now," Raphael commented after a stretch of silence between them.

This confused Simon. "I just - Well, I thought you didn't wanna talk. You know, just focus on what we're doing."

Raphael shrugged. "I didn't mind."

"Oh, okay…" Simon said, at a loss for words the first time today.

"Danny looks a little bit in love with your sister," Raphael said.

Simon turned to where Raphael nodded at. He snorted when he saw Raphael's youngest brother hand a dandelion up to Rebecca, who took it and aw'd at him. "Figures she'd wanna be paired with him. Rebecca wants to be a teacher."

When Raphael didn't say anything back, it occurred to Simon that maybe Raphael hadn't been responding because he didn't know how. And if that were true, could it be because Simon made Raphael nervous? Because maybe Raphael kind of, sort of liked him? Simon could only hope, and didn't stop the small smile forming on his face.

"What?" Raphael asked gruffly.

"Nothing," Simon said, his smile growing wider. He caught sight of a faint blush forming on Raphael's cheeks when he turned his head abruptly towards another table. Simon furrowed his brow when he saw his mother speaking in Spanish with Guadalupe. He was kind of speechless at that.

"Something wrong?" Raphael asked, noticing Simon's change in demeanor.

"I've just never seen my mom speak in Spanish like that before. I guess, I kind of forgot she even knew it. Rebecca and I can hardly speak it," Simon explained.

"Why's that?"

Simon looked at Raphael, then at the ground, contemplating if he wanted to share this with Raphael before looking back up at him. "My mom didn't speak much Spanish herself, but she relearned it when she met my dad. But then my dad died when I was eight and she just kind of stopped speaking it. I guess, it hurt her too much. Speaking in Spanish reminded her of him."

"Sorry," Raphael said for lack of a better response.

Simon shrugged. "It's okay. We're okay now. I'm okay."

"You should relearn it too, though, you know?" Raphael said in an effort to divert some of Simon's tension.

"Hey, I don't have to know Spanish to be any more Latino than you are," Simon said defensively.

Raphael laughed at him. "I meant it could be useful to you. For, like, a job? You know, being bilingual increases your chances of getting hired, right?"

"Oh, I suppose that's true…"

"Idiota…" Raphael said, shaking his head.

"Okay, hey! I know what that means!" Simon said, smiling and laughing along with Raphael, despite himself. "Alright, what about your dad? Where's he?"

"Don't know, don't care," Raphael said curtly.

"Sorry, didn't mean to pry."

Raphael sighed. "No it's fine. He left after he hit me." Simon then noticed the scar on Raphael's cheek and wondered if that's how he got it. He didn't ask, though, and let Raphael continue. "He never did that before. He got mad a lot, but he never hit any of us. Mamá said she'd always leave and take us with her if he hit us. But in the end, she didn't do that at all. She just kicked him out."

"Your mom sounds, like, kind of a badass."

"She is," Raphael agreed. He didn't realize he was smiling at Simon until Simon bit his lip nervously, causing them both to laugh giddily. "So, uh, if you ever do want to practice your Spanish, I could help."

"How about tomorrow?" Simon jumped at the offer.

"Tomorrow's Christmas Eve, I have to help my mom make tamales" Raphael pointed out. "Besides, don't you have plans with your family?"

"So?" Simon whined. He did have plans. He always helped his mom make Latkes, but that gave him an idea. "You could maybe come over for dinner. Then we could grab coffee. And then I could come over to your place and help you and your mom."

"These tamales aren't vegetarian."

"I don't have to eat them. And I could make something else."

"Ponche Navideño?" At Simon's furrowed brow, Raphael clarified, "Christmas Punch. I can show you how to make it, it's easy."

"Is that a yes? C'mon, what do you say?" Simon pleaded.

"I say this sounds like a date, Simon," Raphael teased.

Simon's eyes widened in embarrassment. He hadn't meant to accidentally ask Raphael out - not that he had the guts to ask him out on purpose - but that wasn't the point. "No! No, not like a date. I mean, okay, it kind of sounds like a date. But not a date date."

"Why not a date date?" Raphael asked simply.

"What?" Simon didn't know if he heard that right. Up until a few minutes ago, Raphael wasn't paying him any attention. And well, maybe since then they had shared some smiles, and laughs, and looks, but it couldn't mean Raphael had any potential romantic interest in him. And Simon did have a tendency to project his own feelings onto other people, if his unrequited crush on Clary through out middle school and high school was anything to go by. Yeah, this was just all in his head.

"Never mind. Forget I said anything," Raphael said dejectedly, reaching for a box someone had delivered to their table a little while ago. "Let's just finish sorting this stuff out."

"No, wait," Simon said, placing a hand on Raphael's arm to stop his movements. "It's not that I don't want to. It's that I thought you didn't want to. I mean, you've been avoiding me pretty much this whole day."

"That's true," Raphael confirmed, "but that's only because you're very distracting."

"Good distracting, right?"

"Yes, Simon, good distracting," Raphael said, matching Simon's smile with his own.

"Cool," Simon said. He absentmindedly caught his rabbi smirking at him and raised an eyebrow at how close Simon and Raphael were standing. "Oh, God. I think Rabbi Harel just overheard us," Simon agonized. "And now he's walking over to our moms. Great, that's just great."

Raphael glanced over his shoulder to the three adults just as Padre Ortíz joined them. "Que chismosos. Well, at least I won't have to hear the words 'Raphael, cuando vas a encontrar un novio?' ever again."

"What's that about a boyfriend?" Simon asked, narrowing his eyes at Raphael.

"Uh, it's nothing," Raphael dismissed.

"Oh, c'mon, please?" Simon begged.

"I'll tell you tomorrow," Raphael promised. "On our date."

Simon could almost feel his whole face light up. "Yeah, on our date."

Notes: Translations: Of course, mamá. Siempre. - Of course, mom. Always.

Idiota… - Idiot…

Ponche Navideño - Christmas Punch

Que chismosos. - What gossips.

Raphael, cuando vas a encontrar un novio? - Raphael, when are you going to find a boyfriend?