How Green Becomes Wood

"I think Dark would cry if you fed her before he had a chance to," Daizi replied with a wry smile, "but after spring break we're going to let her start tasting. The high chair is nearly built, Dark assures me, and we've been debating what her first solid food should be. Because you're getting to be such a big girl, aren't you habibti? And, no, I don't think we need anything, but thank you for offering."
 
"Oh, alright, no feeding the baby from the table," Alec said with a dramatic sigh.

Xander finished eating and stood. "Alec, you good to clean up here? I'm going to go get my homework done. There's not much."

Alec nodded. "You made food, I clean the mess. Sounds fair to me!"

Xander headed off upstairs to take care of his homework before Dark returned.
 
"You can feed Enkidu at the table," Daizi teased, reaching over to touch Ivy's arm, "wait until she's got teeth and we know what she is allergic to before we start giving her anything other than milk and specially chosen purees."

Later that evening, Dark returned home, kissed his wife and baby hello, and then after making sure Xander was ready to leave, drove him to the dark room, resisting every urge to ask questions about it.
 
Alec enjoyed playing with Ivy a little longer before returning her to her mother and cleaning up the kitchen. Then he went upstairs to do homework with Xander until Dark arrived home. Xander came down and got in the car with Dark, checking to make sure they were going to the right place.

After several minutes of silence, he said, "Milo does his own developing. He said he'd let me see how it works with the pictures of the gymnastics meet."
 
"That is very impressive of him," Dark replied, finding it truly interesting, "I hear it is rather difficult to develop photographs that way. It is not something I have any actual experience with. I hope you have fun, it is good you are spending some time outside of the house and simply... spending time with a friend. It is important, I think." After saying this, he looked sharply at Xander, "before you say anything: I said with a friend, not friends plural."
 
Xander started to protest but paused when Dark added the last line. He gave a little shrug. "Yeah, I guess you're right." He stared out the window, watching the buildings go by. "It feels weird. Not bad, just weird. You'll keep an eye on Alec for me?"
 
"Two eyes, as often as I can spare them." Dark replied immediately to reassure him, but as they parked, he looked at Xander and said, "It is healthy and normal to spend time apart. It gives you more to talk about when you are reunited at the end of the day."
 
Xander felt as though he should know that line. It rang a bell, but he couldn't quite place it. Either way, it was a good line. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Thanks for the ride. I can find a way home," Xander said. He opened the door and got out but paused before closing the door. "Gandolf, Lord of the Rings?"
 
"If you need a ride home, you can ask me for a ride home. I do not want to find out you walked home." Dark told him with a serious frown, "If Milo's grandparents give you a ride, or you call Cooger, or Sloan, that is fine, but do not walk home from here, and do not hitchhike home." He squinted at Xander as he got out of the car, trying to think up any other unsafe way Xander would try to get home. Ultimately he just said, "Yes. We watched them together, remember?"
 
"Yep, I remember. Hard to forget," Xander nodded. "I promise not to walk home or hitchhike. I don't know how long this will take, but I don't think it's short. I'll text you when we're done. See ya." He closed the door gently, mindful of how much Dark loved his car, and headed for the building, looking for Milo.
 
"Just keep me updated," Dark told him before driving back home.

Milo was waiting just inside the lobby of the dark room, seeming just slightly reminiscent of that old children's song about the dog in the window, and when Xander walked in he said, "Hi! Um, I've just been, you know, getting everything set up. There aren't many people here tonight."
 
"Cool," Xander greeted him, glancing around the lobby with interest. He wasn't sure what he expected, but he was a little disappointed to see it was just a lobby. Nothing special about it. "So, how does this work?"
 
"The room is this way," Milo said, leading him into the dark room he was actually renting, "I've got all of the film inside of the tank and the light is on, but I've got to make the developer. That's the next big step, and I switch the lights off after that. It's not smart to mix chemicals in the dark, you know?"

The room looked a lot like one of the science labs at school. It had metal sinks with those faucets that, somehow, only ever turned on at full-force or a mild drip, some machines that seemed sort of like a microscope, shelves of labeled bottles, stacks of paper, drying racks, tubs, gloves, aprons, goggles, stools, and various other items in neatly labeled compartments.

"Are you allergic to latex?" Milo asked, "You don't have to help with any of the chemicals, but if you're going to, I already had to pay for the room, and they don't do refunds, so... Use the not latex gloves, if you are."
 
"Makes sense," Xander agreed to the statement about not mixing chemicals in the dark. "I don't think I'm allergic to latex. Is that a thing? Sucks if you're like a nurse or something." He picked up a pair of the gloves and scrutinized them closely as if they could possibly be something other than gloves before pulling them on.

"Alright, Doc, what do we do first?" he asked, turning to the racks of bottles. "Do we wait for a lightening storm, or grab a boddle of chemical X? And when should I schedule in the visit from the angry mob?"
 
"They make non-latex gloves, I just don't know where they're kept." Milo explained, putting his own gloves on and getting the bottles of mixture, "Isn't Chemical X how the Power Puff girls were made? I'm not looking to be a dad anytime soon... When I finish mixing this, will you turn off the light? I need to pour it into the film tank, but to do that I need to open the tank, and light will destroy all of this."
 
"Roger," Xander agreed, moving next to the light switch. "How are you going to see to do anything without the light? Do you have, like, night vision glasses or something?" He wrinkled his nose at the smell. It wasn't bad, but he wouldn't have called it good, either. He could get used to it.
 
As Milo took the temperature of the mixture and found it satisfactory, he nodded for Xander to flip the light off. When he did, a dim red light helped fill the space. It was still dark, and it took some time for the eye to adjust properly, but it wasn't pitch black. "No night-vision goggles needed. Just a safety light. But we'll be in the dark for awhile, now."
 
"I have to pour it into the container, and then... shake it. Well, agitate it, and not incessantly." Milo explained, carefully pouring the mixture in and shaking the canister for about thirty seconds before setting it down carefully, "It's a whole process.' He picked the tank back up, shook it, and set it down, "So it's going to be like that for... Nine minutes? 50 seconds of waiting, ten seconds of shaking."
 
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