How Green Becomes Wood

"Good, because I have my doubts." Zeinab joked as everyone filed into the dining room. Saladin rejoined them and set about completely ignoring the large, beautiful wedding portrait hung on the wall.

While they all took their seats, Sloan sent a text to Xander I put the ball on your porch, didn't want to knock and distrub your ~family time~
 
Xander took a moment to send Sloan a thanks for taking the time to bring over the ball. I don't want to escape yet, but it's getting close. See you later. He tucked away his phone and focused on the food before him. At least most people couldn't argue with their mouths full, right?

Alec sat next to Xander, and the pair of them tried to focus entirely on eating.
 
If you do have to flee, let me know and I'll spring ya. I still owe you one. Sloan texted back and peered out her bedroom window with a chuckle. Absolutely no part of her was envious of her friend in that moment.

At some point in the dinner, Dark had leaned over to Marwan and asked him a question he'd surely be punished for later, what was Daizi like when she was younger?

And Marwan gladly sat back and said, "Okay, so, imagine, she's five years old, completely blind, can't see a thing, I'm recently ten, Omar is nine, and she wants to play games with us, but we're kids and we don't know what kind of games we can play with her, so we say, we're going to play hide and seek. Obviously, our goal is to basically just stand in the open and creep around so we're never caught, and we think, okay, she can't see if she's fully hidden anyway, but when we have her seeking us, she just starts hitting and kicking everything she finds, because Daizi decided, for some reason, that the best way to play with us the same way we played with her, is by jumping directly to violence. She ended up getting me in the back of the knee and knocked me to the floor."
 
Xander snorted while Alec laughed while looking uncertain as if he wasn't sure it was okay to laugh. "You were like a little wild beast when you were little, weren't you, Mama?" Xander smirked.

"Did she win the game?" Alec asked.
 
"Okay," Daizi said, holding up one hand, "They were intentionally trying to cheat to mess with me, I was never too stupid enough to realize that. And you," she turned her face to her husband, grinning at him and fully able to tell he was more than a little amused with this narrative, "better watch yourself."

"I have not said anything," Dark replied, in a way everyone except Saladin would perceive as nearly playful.

"Yeah, I guess she did win," Marwan shrugged, laughing openly about the story, "But we just went into her bedroom and rearranged the furniture."
 
"No, what was mean was when we were older and we'd sneak into her room and move her furniture by exactly an inch every week." Marwan grinned while Daizi's mouth fell open.

She hit the table and jumped up slightly, "I knew it! I knew you were doing that! I couldn't prove it!"
 
"I didn't have evidence about them moving my furniture an inch at a time," Daizi scowled, ignoring the amused laughter from most of her family members, "Once Omar helped me to hide confetti on Marwan's ceiling fan. But mostly I'd just 'accidentally' spill stuff on them or get up to the sort of mischief only someone who is blind can get away with."

This time it was Neha whose mouth fell over, "Do you know I still find confetti in my house? And it was you all along?"
 
"I think confetti and glitter are the two most cursed things you can bring into a house," Alec said with a sage nod. "Oh, and tinsel."

"You should know since you bring all three of those things into the house all the time," Xander grumbled.

"Mama never complains," Alec said cheerfully.
 
"She might not," Dark said dryly, taking a sip of lemonade.

"You shouldn't bring tinsel here, though," Daizi said a bit seriously, "It's really dangerous for dogs."

"I can never really be angry when Daizi gets us back, since Omar and I taught her to pull pranks to begin with," Marwan laughed.

A bit hesitantly, Yasmin raised her head to speak up. It was clear she was still struggling a bit with knowing her place at the event, but nevertheless, she said, "It's really a bit of a nightmare, I'm always afraid of a trap my husband set up around a corner."
 
"It would be shorter to list what sorts of pranks he doesn't pull on me," Yasmin said flatly, ignoring the charm of her husband's boyish grin, "Once he started yelling about a leak in the bathroom and yelling to bring towels and I dropped everything and found the vegetable in our bathroom sink. And once he replaced all of our family pictures of himself in various ridiculous outfits and I didn't realize until my mother was visiting."

"I spent hours on that one," Marwan said.

"He's a heart surgeon!"
 
"Yeah," Marwan grinned, leaning towards her, "How long did it take you?"

"a month." Yasmin murmured.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear that," Marwan lied.

"A month, okay! But I was really busy! We were preparing for our holiday to Greece!" Yasmin cried, blushing from embarrassment.
 
"A holiday to Greece would be very distracting," Xander smirked.

"Highly distracting," Alec nodded, trying not to grin. "I can see how you might miss a few-"

"Dozen."

"-small details," Alec finished.
 
Yasmin would've held her face in her hands if her eyelash extensions weren't costly and she hadn't perfected her contour that day.

"Noor noticed immediately," Marwan added, gesturing towards his scowling daughter, "I had to pay her to keep quiet."

"I was just mad Baba didn't let me participate in the photoshoot!" Hassan grinned, "He posed himself to mimic the pictures we already had hanging up, so he was, uhm, edited, right, to be smaller for when he was replacing Noor or me."
 
"There's no way we'd get away with that," Alec snickered. "Although, it does not help that there are not a lot of photo-photos around here. Lots of other pictures. And Ba notices everything."

"Not a bad idea for other times," Xander said.
 
"I do notice everything," Dark agreed, pleased to hear it acknowledged. "If I were not here, it would be easier to get away with, I am sure."

"You should not joke like that." Saladin said brusquely, speaking up for the first time.

Daizi sighed, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment before saying, "Baba, it's fine. I make those jokes all the time."

"Well you should not, and he definitely should not."

"I did not mean it like that, Saladin, I am just known for being observant, it had nothing to do with..." Dark promised, holding up both hands.

"Clearly you are not as observant as you think."

Taking a deep breath and attempting to force a pleasant expression, Dark said, "I apologize, I really did not mean to offend."

Watching this unfold, Noor rolled her eyes so hard it was a wonder they didn't fall out and then put her shoulders back, smiled a big, polite smile which did light up her face at all and said, "Dinner was delicious, Amty Daizi and A'amm Dark. Thank you so much for cooking, may I help clean up? You have done so much for us, I would feel bad not helping."

"Oh, you don't have to," Daizi said, scooting her chair back.

"No, Amty, I insist, really," She lifted her plate and stood, "You were so gracious to host all of us."

"Well I very much appreciate your help," Daizi said, "You're very kind."

"Isn't my granddaughter so polite?" Neha asked, putting her hand over her heart, "Marwan, I had my doubts, I love you, but I thought I'd raise terrors."

Laughing and shaking his head, Marwan said, "Thank my wife, Mama, because I thought I would raise terrors too."

When Noor took Saladin's finished plate from him, he was so surprised by this sullen teenager interrupting him he forgot to continue to lay into Dark, who, noting exactly what she had done, looked at his niece, impressed and surprised, but she only gave him the same what are you looking at response she had given Xander earlier as she continued clearing the table.
 
Xander and Alec glanced back and forth between Saladin and Dark. Xander's expression darkened, his eyes narrowing. He looked away, his expression moody and closed off. Alec was silent, his eyes on his plate. His expression had taken on the pinched, hollow look that he hadn't had for at least a year, not since the days of baby Ivy in the NICU and that sort of drama. He didn't mean to, but he couldn't hide it.

Xander stood first, shaking Alec out of his deer-in-the-headlights freeze. They followed Noor's example and started cleaning up rapidly. With the three of them working, they could clean up the whole kitchen in no time.
 
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