KND - common tradition

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Kids Next Door is Tom Warburton's.

"How did you find out, you lousy brat?"

Father usually hated each member of Sector V equally. But in the past he had reserved his most poisonous aggression for Hoagie and Tommy, and his violent voice was seething with that level of hatred he had only for those two KND operatives.  

"That's top-secret Kids Next Door information!" grinned Numbuh 2, not revealing that Numbuh 1 had compiled a guhbillion-page file on Father. Withholding that information was a sort of vengeance against Father who was especially evil to him in the past, but this time he also didn't want to be hostile to their archenemy. Just this once, he wasn't here to fight the evil adult.

"Grrrr....fine, keep your stupid secret!!" Father grumbled at Numbuh 2's grin. "Hey, why are you so chipper? Aren't you the least bit worried that I'll grind you into coffee?"

"Even really evil adults celebrate the Jewish Festival of Lights! My family celebrates it every year and so when I found out from my top-secret Kids Next Door source that you're Jewish too at first I was 'gonna invite you over to celebrate it with my family since according to my top-secret Kids Next Door source you haven't celebrated it for years and I wondered why that was and then I thought that you haven't celebrated it for years 'cause you don't have anyone to celebrate with! But then again I remembered you're totally evil and might hurt my family or at least burn my house down, so I figured we could light it here in this deserted field!" Numbuh 2 laughed half-cheerfully, half-nervously.

Father listened angrily as Numbuh 2 yakked and yakked, but to Numbuh 2's relief Father's yellow eyes widened with surprise.

"You knew that I didn't celebrate it because I don't have anyone to celebrate with? I mean, I stopped believing in a deity a long time ago, not that that's any of your business! How dare you find out that much personal information about me in the first place!!" 

Numbuh 2 shivered with fear when Father caught fire, but then he latched onto Father's admission. "I knew it! You just need someone to celebrate it with!"

 Numbuh 2 put the hanukiah on a tree stump, that was quickly heating up because Father was on fire. Upon seeing the hanukiah, Father's fire instantly went down. It was a crude, garish thing-- the hanukiah was made out of standard Kids Next Door materials--drinking straws, an upside-down bowl, a tray, and sippy cups without the lids. Yet despite himself, Father couldn't bring himself to insult it....

Numbuh 2 lit the center candle and then placed the candles from right to left. 

Being present at the religious and ethnic-cultural practices he had long since abandoned, and having been pulled back to them, by one of his enemies, Father was overcome with strong positive emotion, causing him to incinerate the leftmost candle and some of the other cups on the hanukiah, and he melted the center candle, which Numbuh 2 was holding, to nearly nothing.

"Hey, did you totally forget how to light the hanukiah?" Numbuh 2 criticized. "You're supposed to use the shamash!"

"I haven't needed the shamash for awhile..." Father retorted a little resentfully.

 Normally he couldn't care less when he let his fire get out of control, but for once, the destruction resulting from his chaoticness, which this time was the smell of melted wax and charred plastic cups, upset him. The hanukiah was already half-destroyed. And even though it was a makeshift one, and cobbled together by snot-nosed Kids Next Door operatives,  it reminded him--clearly and painfully, of the hanukiah he used to light. This was before his demon powers had awakened, and he had, like any other Jew, lit the hanukiah with the shamash, back when he was powerless and weak in Pappy's factory. Lighting it filled him with hope, before he had lost hope and he became evil. And now he had destroyed the thing that had given him hope just by his own freakish, monstrous self. And if that wasn't bad enough, he realized he had screwed up a chance to do something right for once. He started to trudge away through the snow in resignation.

"Where are you going?! We still have seven more days of candle lighting!" Undaunted, Numbuh 2 took the almost-completely melted shamash and lit the second candle on the right. Father's yellow eyes widened, and he came back. Numbuh 2 couldn't see the hint of an almost warm smile under those scary shadows of his, but his eyes, normally narrowed evilly, looked somehow not as evil. In fact they looked sad and---maybe even a little grateful?

And so, even though the hanukiah was half-burnt, the rebel kid and evil adult returned for the next seven days, lighting the candles until all nine glowed with hope.