How Green Becomes Wood

"He sounds like an awful man," Dark murmured. He wasn't sure there was anything he hated more than people who mistreated children. They couldn't take care of themselves, and the only thing they had in their lives was their ability to trust. He was glad when the topic was changed, "If you put it directly over the fire, it runs the risk of overcooking the fish or burning it. And you taste the flames. It cooks slower where it is, but you have more control. If I had a different set up, you know, a fire pit designed exclusively for cooking, then I would set it differently, but this is how I learned," He looked over at Xander, "this is how you learn it. You will be very impressive to the people in your life, you know, everyone will suspect you are a standard American, but secretly? You will be just a tiny bit Arab, and it will be enough that if you change your mind about dating, and fall for an Arab, their father will like you." He smirked slightly at Xander to prove he was joking. When the fish was finished cooking, he stood, and carefully collected it as the scent of it filled the backyard.

"I don't mind," she replied, "it is weird, I've been saying that for years. We all start with just two cells..." She laughed suddenly, "You know, Dark is desperate that this baby will be a girl, but he is also absolutely terrified she will look like him? He's got a strong nose, you've seen him, and he keeps imagining, like, a five year old girl with his adult nose and he frets over it, constantly. I keep telling him it will be fine, I like his nose."
 
Xander snickered softly and looked down at his pale white skin dotted with the faintest of freckles. "That must be one tiny piece of Arab, but I like this. Charcoal fires taste weird." He followed Dark, sniffing appreciatively. "This smells good. Is this a better way? Or is the proper cooking fire better?"

Alec giggled at the image. "Oh dear, that poor child! It could be a weathervane. But baby noses are tiny, not adult size at all."
 
"You could do it in the oven, but the texture is not the same. You could do it on an actual grill, but," He handed the plate of fish to Xander so he could properly extinguish the fire, "why would you? Masgouf is Ancient, it is from Mesopotamia--never forget that I am from the oldest civilization in the world--and it is good to cook such foods as they always have been cooked. This," he pointed to the plate, "is the national dish of Iraq. Although when it is really done correctly it smokes for almost an hour, we do not have that time."

"I keep telling him that," Daizi laughed along with Alec, "but you know how he can be. And I wonder what she will get from me, because my whole," she gestured vaguely towards her face, "it's not genetic, it won't be passed down, so if she looks like me... It's weird to think about, isn't it? My features but symmetrical? I can't even imagine that."
 
"Sounds like a dish from the pits of hell," Xander remarked, steadying the plate carefully. The last thing he wanted to do was to drop the thing. "It goes well with the bloody aspect."

"I think he or she will be beautiful! Maybe not right away because it'll look like a squishy prune at first, but maybe in a day or two," Alec said cheerfully.
 
"Oh they'll be perfect, regardless of what they look like. Even if they stay looking like a squishy prune and have a weathervane for a nose. I just want them born safely, and then I'm never setting them down. Well... I suppose I'll have to, so Dark can hold his baby... he can have five minutes a day." She laughed as Dark returned to them.

"Hey..." He expressed mock hurt, "I should at least get ten."

"But I'm doing all the work!"

"Yes, but I am taking care of you," He set the plate of fish down at the table, having taken it back from Xander before going inside, "I made you dinner."
 
"All I know is I'm not holding it," Xander said, bringing the sides to the table.

"Why not?" Alec asked curiously.

"Because if I hold it, then it'll think something weird is going on with it's eyes." Xander held his pale forearm up close to Dark's without actually touching it. "Or maybe it'll think you and I are ghosts."

"Oh, that is a good point," Alec said with a serious nod. "But let's eat! I'm hungry."
 
"Well I am in technicolor, so, I do not think white people will be the most surprising thing she experiences," Dark replied.

"Wait..." Daizi sat up straighter, "are you two white?" She managed, for once, to hold the sincerity for long enough to make Dark laugh, and then she broke, "No, I just--my whole world view, it's shattered!"

"You... I just..." He shook his head, "Eat your food."

Daizi grinned brightly at him, ever so amused with herself, and gladly ate her dinner. It was good, which wasn't surprising, because Dark was a good cook, but it still made her happy. At some point in the meal she remarked, not for the first time, how great it felt to be able to eat again. When the meal was over, she stood to help with the dishes, but Dark adamantly refused to let her help, because it was Mother's Day, so he did the dishes and then fed and walked the dog, allowing her to simply relax and enjoy herself.
 
Xander and Alec grew quieter as the evening went on, eventually excusing themselves to their room. They holed up there, listening to music together and sitting quietly as the house gradually wound down for the night. As night fell, Xander opened the door and peered out. There wasn't a sound. Daizi and Dark must be up in their room, maybe asleep or not. Either way, the way was clear. He signaled to Alec, and the pair crept out and down the hall, hoping not to attract the attention of even the dog. They slipped out the front door, made certain it wasn't locked, and headed out.

It was a long walk in the early spring twilight. The natural light didn't last long, and they soon found themselves relying on streetlamps and porch lights as they followed the sidewalk out of the residential areas. Alec stuck close to Xander's side, watching the shadows nervously, but Xander walked with confidence. He knew exactly where he was going. Finally, after nearly an hour of walking, they reached their destination.

Xander and Alec stood side by side staring down quietly. Their hands touched but didn't quite hold, their other hands each holding a single white carnation. It was quiet and peaceful out here. Nothing, not even a car on the road interrupted the quiet. A slight breeze ruffled their red hair, and Alec shifted to pull his long grey coat closer.

"Do you think she ever loved us?" Alec asked, finally breaking the silence.

"I don't know," Xander admitted. "Maybe. Deep down. Really deep down."

"I think so, too," Alec agreed. "I mean, she did leave Gary when she found out he hit us."

"He hit her, too," Xander pointed out.

"Yes, but she said that was different," Alec said, his voice quiet. He stood quiet a little longer before saying, "I think she loved us. She just... she didn't know how to do it. She was only two years older than us, after all. Two and a half-ish. Can you imagine raising us in less than three years?"

Xander snorted bitterly. "We practically did raise us, remember? She wasn't exactly a big help."

Alec huddled deeper in his coat for a moment. "She held me and let me cry that time when one of the kids on the playground pushed me off the swings so they could have a turn. She didn't even say I was being silly. She just sat there."

Xander puffed out a sigh. "When she found out that Lewis was making fun of me and picking fights with a seven-year-old and making you cry, she took us out to ice cream. It was that weird place that smelled like feet, and I think I had a bug in mine."

"I saw her crying once. After we moved out of that apartment on Thirteenth Street," Alec said softly. "She was sitting in her room with our three boxes, and she was just crying. Just looking at them and crying."

"I don't remember that," Xander admitted.

"You were in the living room unpacking the kitchen box and trying to get it to fit in that drawer under the cooktop. I was supposed to be unpacking the bathroom, but there weren't any shelves or cupboards, so I went to ask her where to put the towels."

"Oh. Did she say why?"

"No. I didn't ask. I left before she saw me and put the towels on the back of the toilet."

"I hated that apartment," Xander grumbled. "I was almost glad she picked up another guy and moved us out like six months later."

"Yeah," Alec murmured.

Xander shifted and shoved one hand into his pocket. "She never cried around us. She just gritted her teeth and charged forward."

Alec gave him a little smile. "Like you do."

"Yeah," Xander admitted after a minute. "Like me."

Alec looked down at the simple stone. Just a name and the dates. Not even the shortest of epitaphs. It was all the tiny life insurance paid for. They hadn't even gotten anything, even though it'd been the other driver's fault and he'd walked away with nothing more than some bruised ribs. Still, it was better than nothing. Maybe.

"I miss her," Alec admitted quietly. "I didn't at first. Now sometimes I do. But I don't want to go back. Her being alive would mean going back to that, but I don't want her dead."

Xander slipped his hand out of his pocket and put it around Alec's shoulders. "I know," he said softly. "I know. I don't have any answer. I guess it's just one of those... things. You know?"

Alec nodded and sniffed. He leaned down and placed his white carnation flower by the headstone. "Sleep well."

Xander placed his flower next to Alec's. "I hope you're happier now than you ever were here," he whispered. "No more crappy apartments and no more losers. No more kids. Just you. Please. Just be happy."

Alec sat down in the grass and hugged his knees. Xander sat next to him, shivering a little in the cool night wind. Alec slipped off his coat and pulled it over them both. They sat huddled side by side, staring at the cold, dark, emotionless grave before them. They both knew they should go home and get back to their room before Dark and Daizi realized they were gone, but they couldn't leave. Not just yet. They stayed just a little longer, and then a little longer more, sharing one last Mother's Day with the woman who had given them life and tried to look after them even if she had no love to give.
 
Daizi, after dinner, went upstairs to play music for a little while, but felt restless. Nothing particularly felt right, and to an extent she was trying to find something she could do with the baby, but she couldn't feel the baby move yet, and the baby hadn't developed hearing yet, so... there wasn't anything she could do. And she had already done all the things she normally did after dinner when she wanted to relax, so she felt a bit lost, and, defeated, eventually retreated to her bedroom to be restless there. After a bit of this, Dark went upstairs to surprise her with dessert, which was not a euphemism, and they curled up in their massive bed together, sharing a bowl of ice cream.

It worked for awhile, because they could talk to each other for a long time before running out of things to say, and when they finally did, they were comfortable in silence with each other. But eventually she became restless again, and speaking with her husband, she realized why. Daizi had never celebrated Mother's Day before, because her mother had died before she knew her, but now, for the first time, she was celebrating it. She had kids, they were her fosters, but they were still her kids. And it really seemed like, this time, her baby was going to live. She knew it was still premature to get excited, but the doctor was more confident than ever. The baby was always right on track, always moving, always had a strong heartbeat, and that had never been true before, so... She trusted it, and even though her mother was dead, it was still her grandchild.

She wondered if her mother was out in the afterlife taking care of all of the babies she had lost... And at last, she got out of bed again, deciding to light a candle. She went downstairs, with Dark trailing behind her, but on her way, she paused, and decided to invite the twins to light one with her, for their mom. Dark wouldn't light one for his, but it was understandable. She knocked on their door, but heard no answer, so she knocked again. When there still wasn't a reply, Dark tried knocking. Even if they were listening to music, normally at least one twin would eventually answer, but now there was nothing. They both hated entering the twins' bedroom without permission, but it was strange so they opened the door to find... no one inside.

Immediately, they started calling out and going through the rooms trying to find where they might have been hiding, and even went out into the garden, but they were nowhere to be found. Daizi was desperate to call the police, but Dark urged her against it, yet, and instead told her to call Alec on her phone, and he would call Xander on his.
 
Alec's phone rang pointlessly at the edge of his desk, vibrating itself off the edge and into the trash can with a clatter where, doubtlessly, Alec would find it in a couple of days. Until then, it was absolutely useless for its intended purpose.

The quiet night shattered under the shrill ringing of Xander's phone in his pocket where it was supposed to be. Alec and Xander both jumped so badly they nearly bumped heads and fell from their perch. It took Xander three rings to even realize what it was. He pulled it out of his pocket and hastily answered on ring five.

"Hello?" he rasped, shocking himself at the quality of his voice. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Hello?"
 
When Alec didn't answer, Daizi's panic only increased, but Dark gently squeezed her hand to get her to calm down. Xander answered, and where one was, the other would surely be, "Hello..." he said slowly on the phone, "...Where are you? Is Alec with you?" He tried to sound calm, but he was both a bit freaked and a bit angry--the ultimate result of his emotion would depend on where they were and if they were okay.
 
Xander felt a squirm of guilt in his chest. He'd felt certain Dark and Daizi would be in bed asleep and not notice their absence. "Yeah, Alec is here," he said, glancing at his brother, who was watching intently. "We're, uh, we're at the cemetery. Cedar Pond Cemetary." He wasn't sure what to say next. An apology, maybe? But Dark didn't sound angry. Maybe tense? But that could be the connection. "We lost track of time," he said a bit lamely.
 
The cemetery. Okay. He exhaled, he could imagine why they were there. That didn't mean he wasn't still upset with them for sneaking out, but at least they hadn't snuck out to go to a party or commit crimes.

"They are at the cemetery," Dark told Daizi, who hardly calmed down by knowing where they were, and she tried to take the phone from him, but instead he said, "Stay there, I am coming to get you."
 
Oh. He was angry. "Yes, sir, we'll be here," Xander promised before hanging up and tucking his phone into his pocket.

"Is he mad?" Alec asked timidly.

Xander shrugged, trying to downplay it a little for Alec's sake. "Some, I think. He said to stay here and wait."

"Oh." Alec sat back down on the tiny stone bench that made up part of a different grave and hugged his knees. "Oh dear. I'm sorry."

Xander snorted and sat next to him. "Don't be. It was my idea. We'll just tell him that when he gets here, and if he's too mad... oh well. Don't worry about it. I'll handle it."

Alec gave a tiny nod and huddled up against his brother.
 
Mostly for the twins' sake, Dark tried to convince Daizi to stay home and hold the fort, but she emphatically refused. She was probably angrier than he was: she had gone to them and spoken with them and told them that she would listen, and instead they snuck out behind her back. It wasn't even that she blamed them for wanting to go to the cemetery, it was the fact they hid it, and they scared the hell out of her. So she was going with.

It wasn't too hard to find them, the cemetery was small and there weren't really anyone else in it that late. During the drive over they had spoken about what they were going to say to the twins, and how they were going to handle it. It was tricky because they agreed they couldn't just let them off without at least a small punishment, because they couldn't sneak out, that just was not allowed, but also they didn't want it to come across as if they were being punished for where they had gone. Technically, they knew it was possible they were in the cemetery for nefarious purposes, but really they suspected why they were actually there. And they didn't want to punish that.

Still, when they approached Alec and Xander, although Dark maintained his typical neutral expression--his jaw may have been slightly tighter, but that was it--Daizi looked mad.

"Okay," Dark sighed, crossing his arms, "Come on. We have to go home." He did not want to lecture them there, the car was better.

Daizi had no such qualms, and immediately, with strong hand gestures, began asking, "What were you thinking? Sneaking out, not telling us a thing? Do you have any idea what might have happened? You could have been kidnapped or killed and ah-we wouldn't even know where you were, and the police would ask us where you might have gone and we would have dumbly said, 'I don't know, officer,' and then we would be suspects in your disappearance and you better hope we found your bodies because otherwise we would spend the rest of our lives trying to find you while everyone in our lives presumed that we harmed you! Did you think of that?"

"Daizi, you will wake the dead," Dark murmured, and she whipped around to sharply tell him something in Arabic.

Turning back to the twins, she continued, "And what if while you were gone, the house caught on fire? And we didn't know you weren't home so we were trying to find you and we believed you had burned to death? What would have happened then?"
 
Alec trembled under Daizi's tirade. He inched closer to Xander, seeming to be trying to press himself right into his brother's side. He knew full well Daizi's lecture was well-earned. He should have known better. It was just... just... he had nothing to finish that thought with. Daizi was right. It was a horrible thing they did! Horrible and selfish! How could he have done this? He pressed his face into Xander's shoulder, tears dripping down his cheeks, shoulders shaking. Daizi was right.

Xander glared at Daizi, his heart still aching and tender. Oh, he knew full well she was right and he had been stupid, but there was no way the red-head wasn't going to live up to his firey-haired reputation. He put one arm around Alec, shielding him slightly as he moved forward half a step. "Well, then I guess we would be in exactly the right place!" he replied tartly to her question. "You could bury us nice and neat right here and never worry about us ever again! That would make things easier, wouldn't it?" His voice cracked a little, and his eyes stung. He didn't want to fight, but he didn't know how to turn it off! His own fury at himself fed into his vague anger at the world and at Daizi for yelling. Even if she was right. "You'd never have to worry about us. We wouldn't have to worry about you. Maybe then everyone could finally be fucking happy! Without us!"

A tear streaked down Xander's cheek, hot and burning in shame and anger. Even so, despite the cracking voice, despite the tears, he glared, chest heaving.
 
"Because that's what we want?!" Daizi asked, bringing her hands to her chest and then throwing them wide, "You weren't in the house and I thought you had left! That you had run away! That you--!" She really, really wanted to stay angry and keep yelling at them, and make them understand that they couldn't just sneak out and have them act like everything was fine, but when Xander spoke about just being gone, and how it would make everybody happy, all of the panic she had felt spilled over, and she was overcome with full body sobs, "I was terrified! You scared the hell out of me, I thought you had left, or that something terrible had happened!" She clutched at her chest with one hand and at her side with the other, and tried to take deep breaths, but the moment she realized she didn't know where they were, all she could think about were the million awful things that might have happened, but at the top of the list was that Alec and Xander had finally had all they wanted from them and gone off to catch a bus somewhere, and she would never find them again.

"If you wanted to come here," Dark said, much more quietly, "we would have driven you, and waited in the car, or around the corner. If the sun was still up, we might even have let you walk here, but you cannot leave the house with at least telling us."
 
Xander looked away as Daizi started to cry, guilty gnawing at his insides. "Right," he muttered sullenly. "Message received. We get it. Are we going home now or what?" He started walking toward the car, feeling as if he were bleeding inside the pain of conflicting emotions hurt so badly.

"We're sorry," Alec whispered, still trembling. "We're really sorry. We didn't think... we know you said, but we didn't think you'd... I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault!" Xander snapped, making Alec jump. He addressed his next words to Dark and Daizi. "It was my idea. He didn't like it but went along with it. We didn't think we'd come at all. That's why we never asked."
 
"Come on, we can talk about this at home." He gently took Daizi by the elbow to lead her to the car. If she was trying at all to stop her tears, it wasn't working at all, and she had to entirely rely on Dark's guidance. With everything going on, she hadn't thought to grab her cane, and she didn't want to trip over a headstone or walk over a grave. At the car, she slipped into her seat and crumpled against the window, trying to catch her breath.

"We aren't even mad about where you went!" She cried, strands of her hair sticking to her face, "and we don't want you to think that we don't want you to come here, because that's not it all, it's just, you can't---" She swore, roughly rubbing her face, "We wouldn't have said no!"

Softly, Dark told her he felt the boys felt badly enough about it, and that perhaps they should let it be for the moment, but she found it difficult to, and she was angry with him that he could just let it be. In truth, he had been just as frightened as she had been, he was just better at hiding it. It wasn't like the twins looked proud at what they had done, he didn't want to make them feel worse. They could talk about it later while they were all a bit calmer, it would save feelings that way, he hoped.
 
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"Daizi," Alec whimpered softly, his voice barely audible. "Please don't cry. Please don't. We didn't mean to. We'll never do it again. Please don't cry."

Xander sat in his seat, his expression completely blank. Don't feel. Don't hear. Don't see. Just wait until it's over.
 
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