How Green Becomes Wood

"Right," Xander agreed.

He grabbed his jacket and shoes and helped Milo gather his stuff up for the van. Alec called an enthusiastic farewell to Milo as they left, and then they were in the van and heading for Milo's house. Xander turned the music on low and settled in for a quiet drive.
 
Milo made quiet conversation with Xander as they drove back to his grandparents' house. It had been awhile since they last had 1:1 time like this and he had missed it. He didn't feel half as awkward around Xander as he did around pretty much everyone else in his life. He spent a lot of the trip just looking out the window, trying to see the stars, "What's the most isolated place you've ever been?" He asked suddenly, "Not like, emotionally. But the place with the fewest amount of people."
 
Xander thought about that for a bit. "I'd say... my uncle's cabin. I'm not sure how remote it actually is, but it sure feels like it's in the middle of nowhere. Real quiet. Up until then, I'd pretty much never left the city. Finding a quiet spot was digging into an unnoticed corner or something that was still within twenty feet of other people. Hadn't really thought about how crowded my life's been." He considered that for a bit. "You?"
 
"My mom and I, when we were on the road, would sometimes end up on these really empty backroads. Most of my time with her I spent out west until we came back this way to live in Chicago for a little while, but pretty much since I was nine we were hoping around the west coast. Sometimes we'd be out late like this on some desert road, there would be nothing around for miles, and you'd look up and see every star in the sky." Milo replied, not really needing to think about it, "I've always liked driving at night."
 
"That sounds really cool," Xander admitted with a nod. "Peaceful. Maybe sometime you can come check out my uncle's place. It's no back road in the desert, but it's pretty dark. A good spot for looking at the stars."

They reached Milo's grandparents', and Xander pulled up in front.
 
"That'd be cool," Milo replied as they parked, "You should do a roadtrip sometime. I wish I hadn't moved around so much, but I really like being on the road like that. I want to visit every US state, I think. I've driven through a lot of them, but I don't know if it counts."

When they parked, he looked back over at Xander, "See you tomorrow?"
 
"Definitely," Xander assured him. He stayed long enough to make sure Milo got inside, and then he turned around and headed home.

It was a quiet evening for the twins, and they soon turned in. It had been a fantastic fun, but it was time for the ghosts to go to sleep for the knight.
 
The next day, by the time Xander arrived to the darkroom, Milo was already there. He had returned all of the gear from yesterday and was already set up for the steps they needed to do that day. He had also processed the second roll of film from Ivy's birthday so only the ghost pictures were still light sensitive, although the second roll was still drying and couldn't be looked at yet.
 
Xander had tried to get there before Milo, intending to pay for this session for him on the sly, but Milo was already there. He chalked it up to Milo's anxiety and not wanting to be late for anything. He headed inside, tapping lightly on the door and making sure no light got in. "How's it going?"
 
"Good, it's good," Milo replied, nodding. "Come here, look at this," He had in front of him a test print of one of the wagon pictures. It had Xander from the back and only Alec's side profile, but Ivy was facing the camera with a huge grin on her little face, "The contrast is lower than I'd like, I have to redo it, but it's one that's got the three of you without, you know. Having too much of you and Alec." There were others in the sequence he preferred more, which did have all three facing the camera, but he tried to respect Alec and Xander's dislike of pictures.
 
"Thanks," Milo replied, he pointed at a small object on the table, "You can take the loupe there and hold it up against the film so see the negatives. I think it goes up until dinner? I don't remember when I switched rolls, exactly, it was definitely before cake, though."
 
"I don't have time to make prints of all of them today, are there any on that roll you really like?" Milo asked as he reprocessed the picture he showed Xander originally to fix the contrast, "I took so many I'll probably have to finish some by scanning them and fixing the colours in photoshop. It's not my favourite way to do it but it's faster. I want to do the best ones this way, though."
 
"I'm redoing the last print I did so the contrast is better," Milo replied, fiddling around with a number of things and he took the time to explain the process a little better, "How many copies of these do you think I should make? I'm not saving most of these for myself, I don't really need this many pictures of someone else's baby's birthday."
 
Xander rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Let's see. There's one for my parents, one for Amty Zeinab, and... oh, Mrs. Hollis might want one. Three should be good. I could text my parents and ask if that's right."
 
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