How Green Becomes Wood

"Oh, that's awesome," Sloan said, rubbing her face, "I want, like, an entire barrel of fries. Who am I taking?"

"No," Dark replied calmly, standing and walking with them to the arena exit, "I suppose you will simply have to walk."

~~

"Ivy-Qadira," Daizi told her. Even after six months of saying the name, her pride in it hadn't diminished even slightly. "Say hi, habibti! And his name is Enkidu, like from the Epic of Gilgamesh. You can pet him if you like. How have the repairs been coming along?"
 
"Looks like me and Peter," Becky told Sloan.

"Okay. Good thing we wore sturdy shoes today!" Alec said cheerfully as he followed Dark. "Or I suppose we could fit four people in the back of Sloan's car if we really squished." He knew Dark was joking, but it was fun to take him seriously.

~~

"Ivy-Qadira," Lex said, struggling with the second half of Ivy's name but legitimately trying to get it right. She grinned and leaned over to pet Enkidu. "Hello, big boy! You're a nice looking fellow, aren't you? What's the Epic of Gilgamesh? The repairs are coming along pretty good! I think we've managed to get all the big problems taken care of, so now it's a thousand and one smaller problems."
 
"Alright, cool. We should get going, there's a lot of us, we want to make sure we can get a table." Sloan said, getting her car keys and walking to open up her trunk to put her gym bag into.

"Yes, that is very fortunate. Otherwise you would be overrun with blisters, I imagine." He looked behind at them, "Milo, you are coming?"

The teens eyes widened, and he hurried quickly after them, "Um. Y-yeah. If that is okay."

"One of you will need to sit in the middle seat, but there is space. Come along."

~~
"Qadira," Daizi repeated, more slowly that time. She didn't particularly mind if Lex mispronounced her name, but she wanted Ivy's said properly. "We were told he was the runt, our friend--well you know Cooger--the shelter he fosters cats for got a bunch of sickly little puppies from a puppy mill, and we had been wanting a dog, so we brought him in, and told he'd be small for his breed, which... Didn't happen." If Lex tried at all to pull her hand away, Enkidu bumped his head against her to ask for more, "The Epic of Gilgamesh is the first known Epic Narrative, found ins Mesopotamia. Enkidu was Gilgamesh's best friend, and a wild sort of... beast man, and Dark's initials are G.M., like Gilga-Mesh, so we thought it'd be cute if we named our dog after it." It was definitely more of an explanation than Lex probably cared about, but they put a lot of thought into what they called their dog, "And that's great to hear. I'm glad we were able to get you sorted with our friend, I can't imagine how much more frustrating you would've been if you were with someone who was less... helpful, I guess."
 
Peter and Becky piled into Sloan's car, Peter in the back, and Alec took the middle seat as he felt like he was possibly the thinnest. Milo might have been the thinnest, but he was also tall, theoretically taller than the twins if he didn't slouch. The middle seat did not have much by way of leg room. Alec told Dark where they were going and then tried to be as thin as possible, thinking thin thoughts.

~~

Lex repeated the name a few times until she got it right as she gave Enkidu a good scratching. "That's a good name. I've never been particularly good at names or naming. I named Toby after one of the ER nurses that I saw for about five seconds. It was that or take the naming paperwork home with me, and I did not want to do governmental paperwork alone. I think it worked out okay. He's a good Toby. And, yeah, thank you for your help with that. He's been brilliant."
 
When they were all in the car driving to the restaurant, Dark glanced over at Xander, "Mrs. Appelbaum told me something at the meet today."

~~

"Really?" Daizi asked, an amused smile lifting her face, "You decided it then? Dark and I spent months trying to pick it out. Her full name is even longer, her middle name is Hala.. It means the glow of light around the moon, he says it's beautiful. But I guess, if you're someone who only goes by his initials, picking the right name..." She shrugged, not mentioning how Dark had begun to question his commitment to two letters, "I bet it took a lot of stress away, though. Or did it add it? I would've felt unprepared."
 
"Yeah? What's that?" Xander asked, wondering how anything Mrs. Appelbaum could say would have anything to do with him.

~~

"Well..." Lex gave Enkidu one more good rubbing before straightening. "To tell you the truth, I was not the most prepared mother. Tobias wasn't planned in the worst way possible, and I didn't even realize I was pregnant until about five months along. I was on drugs at the time, and my judgment... 'impaired' is the nice way of putting it. I'd only been consistently sober for about two months before he was born. It's honestly a miracle he turned out as, well, 'healthy' as he did. Naming him after an ER tech was probably one of the best things I did for him for the first two years of his life."
 
"She told me yesterday, she looked out of the house, and she thought she saw you sneaking a girl out." Dark explained, a small, almost devious glimmer in his eyes, "and she warned me I needed to keep a better eye on you."

~~

"Oh," Daizi replied, instinctively touching Ivy's head with one hand, "I'm sorry, I hope I didn't make you feel..." She shifted, trying to figure out how to respond without being patronizing or nosy, "He's a great kid, at least as far as I've heard about him, so... I think sometimes the majority of how you treat someone tends to outweigh rough patches." She shrugged, "I tried to do everything right with her, and it was still touch-and-go way too often... And, honestly... I'm sorry, this is insensitive, but... There's part of me that wishes I hadn't known until five months, my first trimester was horrendous. As much as I loved most of being pregnant, I'd probably take not knowing for part of my second trimester if I didn't have to go through what I did in the first."
 
Xander smirked at that. "Hmm, that's true. You probably should. Girls sneaking in and out at all times. It's so high school boy."

~~

Lex smiled and shook her head. "Nah, it's not insensitive. I've long since made my peace with most of my mistakes, and I don't blame you for wanting to forget. My sister had some pretty nasty morning sickness for two of her kids, and just witnessing it I was glad I didn't remember it. I'm glad she's here now and you get to enjoy this sweet little bundle of joy."
 
"I promised I would speak to you about it, because really, sneaking a girl out of our home? What a scandal. It would ruin us if it got out." Dark said, shaking his head.

~~

"I actually fainted, once, because of it. Well, that, and the normal light-headedness from needing extra blood." Daizi shook her head, "Xander was so upset with Dark and I about it. But now she's just a few days shy of six months old. And still with her family, where she belongs, despite what some people have to think about it."
 
"Alright, fair, you've gotta talk to me about that," Xander nodded. "Got any tips for how to not get caught?" He smirked at Dark, eyes glinting in amusement.

~~

Lex raised her brow. "No kidding... I feel like there's a story behind that. It has something to do with the previous owner, right?"
 
Dark chuckled in a low voice as he pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant, "None that I am willing to share and you would like to hear. But not having proper adult supervision helped, and unfortunately you lack such freedom."

~~

Daizi scoffed, for the first time looking unkind, "She was a foul woman. If she moved into a bad nursing home it would be too good for her. Ivy's first entire month here she kept calling CPS on us to try to get her taken away."
 
Xander snickered. "Oh. Darn. Such a loss. Oh well." He opened the door and slid out. "Thanks for saving our feet."

Alec leaned forward and touched Dark's shoulder gently. "Thank you! Sloan will take us home, so you can go hang out at home with the other half of the family."

~~

"You gotta be s*@#ing me," Lex said flatly. "She really did that? D####, some people. No way in hell was that necessary! Looks like the CPS didn't think so, either."
 
"Thank you, Sir," Milo murmured, hurrying out of the car after Alec.

"You are welcome. I will see you later." Dark said, and waited to see all of the teenagers inside the restaurant before driving away.

~~

"It was terrible," Daizi said, a bit of the emotion from the memory creeping into her voice, "I kept telling CPS I thought it was because I'm blind, and the agent kept telling me how that wasn't it, that I was overreacting, and that she's met parents who are, by her estimation, more disabled then I am, and they don't have CPS called, so that couldn't possibly be the reason why. But when we caught the woman who was doing it---she said flat out it was because of my disability. And the agent didn't apologize for making me feel like I was crazy."
 
Alec and Xander joined up with Peter, Becky, and Sloan when they arrived, and Peter absolutely insisted that they let him treat them all. He teased them that that would mean the rest of them would feel indebted and get him food at a later date, but in truth, he did it so that Milo wouldn't feel too awkward with how much he could afford. He knew the others could pay for their own meals, but he wasn't sure about Milo, or even if he could afford it, if he'd feel comfortable. Alec and Xander tried to argue against it, but eventually caved, agreeing that Peter was a mad genius by getting them all indebted to him. Becky didn't argue too strongly, admitting that she had a soft spot for free food. Then it came time to order, and they all insisted that Sloan should go first. Xander mostly hung back near Milo, occasionally adding a nod or a few words where needed.

~~

"I guess you could always ask for one," Lex suggested. "That usually works better than you'd expect."
 
Sure enough, Milo did also try to convince Peter not to pay for him, but upon seeing it was futile, he looked at the menu and tried to find the cheapest thing possible on the menu and sat quietly by Xander, occasionally chatting to Xander, but not saying anything to the group, except for the rare occasion when someone else in the group spoke to him. On such an occasion, he answered openly. Awkwardly and avoiding eye-contact, but openly.

For her part, Sloan didn't bother much with arguing about who would pay, because she just performed flips literally feet off the ground, and she just wanted to eat.

~~

"I suppose I could," Daizi agreed, dipping her head to kiss Ivy's head, "but calling up someone I haven't spoken to in months to request her apologize does not seem worth the hassle." She sighed, "That neighbor, after she couldn't get CPS to do her bidding anymore--and, you know, I understand why they had to investigate, but there are so many children who actually needed help, who weren't getting it because they were here--she reported Dark and I to the FBI. Because if she couldn't get Ivy taken away from us, she was going to try to get us deported, I guess. At best."
 
Remembering Sloan's comment about wanting to eat a bunch of fries, Peter added two extra large orders of fries, and once they found a table and settled down to their food, he spread out the extra fries for all.

After a while, Becky leaned over to Sloan. "I can't believe you do all those death-defying stunts! Me, I'm scared enough about the test coming up next week. And worst of all, my study group fell apart!"

~~

"I don't think I even know how to report someone to the FBI," Lex admitted. "Glad to see it didn't work! You definitely belong here in that crazy-cool house of yours."
 
"I'm scared of tests too," Sloan replied with a small laugh, "but it's just... I dunno. A different kind of fear. When you're learning skills like that, you have a lot of support, and even during the match you have spotters. I've still seen people get hurt, and I've gotten hurt, thankfully not too badly but... I dunno. It's too fun fo worry about it, I guess."

~~

Daizi smiled politely, feeling like there was some gap in understanding but not wanting to dive into it, "I'm glad too. If we were sent back to our home countries... Ivy has Egyptian citizenship, or would get it if we applied for her to have it, but Dark cannot get it through me, and we would have lost the twins. I mean..." She shrugged, "Realistically, there's no way it would've happened, we're both citizens here, and we've not broken any laws, but: They probably would've taken Dark into custody and roughed him up."
 
"That makes sense, whereas tests are no fun at all, except maybe studying for them," Becky pouted. Then her eyes brightened. "Say! Maybe you could help me study! You've already been through the material, you'd know so much more than me, and it would be so fun! We could have a little study party at my house. Just us. My mom makes the most amazing cupcakes, and we could maybe watch a movie or something when we're done!" She bounced a little in her enthusiasm.

~~

"That is seriously messed up that someone would try to do that to your family," Lex said sympathetically. "That really sucks. Those boys, they really, really love you. Losing you... Yeah, that'd have broken them. I can't even imagine how you would have been able to handle the rest of it, and realistic or not, that kind of a threat... Damn."
 
"I guess I could," Sloan replied, although she felt like there were probably better tutors out there, "What class is it? Because if it's geometry, you'd be better off getting help from someone else."

~~

"And yet, people try to say racism is dead." Daizi said flatly, "It is not the most comforting way to begin her life. But," She made herself smile, "Now you know what came before you, and it must be pretty comforting to know you can't possibly be a worse neighbor."
 
"Actually, history," Becky groaned. "It's just so boring! I desperately need someone to study with me so I don't fall asleep."

~~

Lex snorted. "Racism and classism are alive and kicking, and probably always will be, unfortunately. Anyway, I'm glad to know that my smithing will not be bringing about curses upon my head from at least one neighbor. I do promise to keep it to reasonable hours, though it might be a bit later and earlier during the summer thanks to the heat of the day." She nodded to Ivy's stroller. "By the way, I noticed you're a stay at home mum at least for now. How is that treating you?"
 
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