How Green Becomes Wood

"Alright, come on, come on," She laughed again. After tucking her cane beneath her arm, Daizi put one hand on each of their shoulders, trusting, perhaps a bit too dangerously, that they had just enough of their wits left to not walk into anything, as she guided them away, "You're okay. Let's see what else is there, right? I don't have working eyes, I don't know where we're headed, so I need you both to snap yourselves awake before we end up somewhere more disturbing."
 
"I'm not sure if there is anything more disturbing," Alec said, shuddering. "Wait, didn't you say there was a bed of nails or something?"

"There's a kids' experience room just that way," Xander said, pointing. "That's the only place left it could be."

"Perfect. Let's go," Alec said firmly.

Xander shot him a look. "We are not exactly kids anymore, at least not the type they mean."

"I don't see any 'you must be this short to enter' or 'under this many feet tall,'" Alec pointed out, leading the way toward the children's room. "It doesn't look very busy. In fact, I only see one small family with two kids. There's plenty of room for you to lay on a bed or nails or whatever else is in there!"
 
Indeed, the inside of the room did have the bed of nails, as well as a human-sized hamster wheel and a giant floor piano (and other fun activities of a similar nature). The bed of nails was the only one with a ride operator, who seemed mostly to be chilling since the room was so empty at the moment.

"I can't do it myself," Daizi told them as they approached it, "because I'm not allowed to lie on my back, and even though for a few brief moments it would probably be fine, I'd rather not take that risk."

The thing itself, temporarily, looked rather flat, with no nails to be seen, and only a number of holes in the board, and when someone tried it, they were instructed to lie flat on their back. Then they were instructed to stay perfectly still, so that when the operator pressed a button and a fleet of nails emerged, they would all together lift the person, and though they could feel them, none would pierce the skin.
 
"It looks like you'd have to be very flat with your weight evenly distributed, anyway, so that's likely not wise in your condition," Alec told her, looking it over.

Xander stepped up first, still a little pale from his ordeal. "I'll give it a try."

He lay flat, wiggling a bit to get properly situated, and then gave the operator a thumbs up. It was nice to lay down and catch his breath, even if it was on a bed of nails.

Alec leaned close to Daizi and whispered, "If he dies, can I have his book collection?"

"I can hear you!" Xander grumbled.
 
Daizi grumbled a bit at the words, 'your condition', because it always felt somehow both uncomfortably clinical and detached yet highly euphemistic. But she leaned over to Alec and whispered, "You've got more rights to them than the rest of us, so you may as well. But if he dies, we'll have bigger problems, I'm not sure how Dark would react."

Then she stepped back, and in a much brighter voice said to Xander, "You'll do great, habibi, we're all rooting for you!"
 
Alec snickered softly, feeling a lot better now with a bit of a laugh.

"It's in the kid's room! Exactly how deadly do you think this thing is?" Xander demanded. He glanced over at the ride operater. "How many people have you seen die on this thing?"
 
"Oh just about once a week," the operator said dryly, flipping the switch so the nails began coming up, "But so far this week, nobody. Just stay still and you'll be fine. And don't try to sit up until I tell you to."

Daizi rested her arm on Xander's shoulder, and asked, "Habibi, tell me, how good is your brother at staying still normally?"
 
Xander grumbled but did as the operator asked and held perfectly still.

"Normally, not very good," Alec admitted, "but I think he's being properly motivated to stay still now!"

"Feels weird," Xander reported. "Not bad, just weird. It kind of tickles."

"Looks weird, too," Alec said, leaning over to watch the nails rise. "You're doing good, though."

"Feels a bit anticlimactic to me," Xander said, moving his arm. He winced as the nails dug into his arm but did not puncture skin. "As long as I hold still."
 
"When you keep your weight evenly distributed against the nails, they don't have the force to puncture you," The operator explained, and after a few moments of letting Xander have the experience, he flipped the switch so the nails went back down, and he could get off.

"Your turn, Alec?" Daizi asked, "Since your brother survived it?"
 
Xander rolled off and stretched. "That was quite the refreshing nap!" he proclaimed with a smirk and got off to stand next to Daizi.

"No thanks, I'm good," Alec said brightly. "I'm even worse at holding still than Xander. I would twitch my way into being aerated by a bed, and I find that thought rather disturbing."
 
"Aw, alright then. Do you want to try the hamster wheel then? Or are you ready to get something to eat?" Daizi asked, amused and happy. She rubbed the back of Alec's head, and just took a second to think about how nice it was to get to spend time with them for once.

"You know," She said warmly, "I'm taking a long time off of work after the baby comes, so when she gets a bit older, is sleeping through the night and is on a regular sleep schedule and all thise things... I'll have a lot more time to spend with you both. Or, you all. But I'll still make time for when it's just us three."
 
"Hampster wheel!" Alec said excitedly, grinning despite Daizi mussing his hair. He didn't mind.

"Definitely gotta take a go in the hampster wheel,' Xander agreed. As they walked toward the contraption, though, he commented to Daizi, "It's been a cool day, seriously, but don't worry about it when the mini comes along. She's going to need a lot, and you will, too. When you got time for us, we'll totally take it, but don't stress about not giving us more. You don't need to worry about giving everybody a 100% all the time. Babies need like fifty, and then the husband's gotta have his share, so we're cool with like ten percent each."

"Besides," Alec commented, pulling away when they reached the hampster wheel, "if all you have is twenty percent and you give us the full twenty percent, that's still a hundred percent if that's what you have to give. I want to go first!"

"Fine, but I'm next!"

Xander and Alec dashed forward, getting into a minor playful scuffle, and Xander let Alec go first, both of them fully focused on the ride and not thinking about what they'd said to Daizi.
 
Daizi was about to express how they need to stop worrying about her and Dark giving all of their attention to the baby, because so many families have a younger child, and it doesn't mean they just entirely forget their older children, but the rest of what they said took her by surprise, and she fell silent thinking about it.

She folded her arms over her bump, not quite hugging herself but not quite not. The baby was kicking again, and Daizi wondered if she was in agreement with her brothers or if she wanted that twenty percent they had claimed. None of them would know until she was born and they learned what sort of temperament she'd have.

But Daizi had been carrying around so much guilt for not giving them everything she felt she should be giving them, because she just... physically couldn't, underneath the pressures of everything else in her life-- And the guilt of feeling like she wasn't giving as much at her job as she used to and feeling like she had been more selfish with her husband because of how stretched she felt. Not stretched thin, obviously. That thought made her laugh to herself, but the rest...

There were just too many thoughts in her mind to make any sense of, while her kids ran on a giant wheel.
 
Xander and Alec took turns running on the wheel, challenging each other for how fast they could get it going. Of course, Xander was in better shape because he actually worked out while Alec mostly did not, but Alec was pleased to find that he could nearly keep up with Xander and at least get it going really fast.

The family with the two kids reached the wheel, and the littlest one, a toddler, went right up and crawled on while Xander was on the wheel. Alec noticed first and let out a little yelp, but Xander was already freezing. The two parents were in the process of rushing over to apologize when Xander very carefully got the wheel moving for the toddler since she was too light to move it herself. The toddler grinned, half walking and half crawling until she got tired and sat down. Xander stepped around her to get out of the wheel, and he and Alec gave the family a polite nod before returning to Daizi.

"I am absolutely wiped," Alec sighed, leaning lightly against Daizi.

"I am absolutely famished," Xander groaned, standing on her other side.

"Ready to go?" they asked in unison.
 
When they came back, she inhaled, quickly wiping her eyes and hoping it was smooth enough they wouldn't notice, and with a bright smile she said, "Sure am. I'm starving too, and god do I miss not being hungry literally all the time. Where do you want to eat? Did you have fun?" She gave Alec a quick squeeze and then let go to unfold her cane, "If it's nearby we can walk, otherwise we'll need to hail another cab. But that's no problem, really, they're easy to get at a busy place like this."
 
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"I've got an idea!" Alec grinned.

"Oh no," Xander groaned.

Alec ignored him. "Let's walk out, turn, and eat at the first place we come to that seems like it has eatable food."

"Grocery stores have eatable food. What if we come to one of those first?" Xander pointed out.

"Some of those have food courts," Alec replied, walking with Daizi toward the exit. "And if they have a deli, delis often have good food!"
 
"If Dark were here, that would kill him," Daizi said slyly, "but since he's not here, that sounds like a great idea. Although, with one caveat: I'm roughly two and a half weeks from being in my third trimester, which means my feet hurt basically all the time, so if we don't find somewhere in let's say... 15 or 20 minutes of walking, we reasses, because we've already been walking through this museum for most of the day."

As they were headed towards the exit, she suddenly paused and said, "I almost forgot, we need to get something for Dark! Do we exit through the gift shop?"
 
"I didn't think of your feet, I'm sorry," Alec apologized. "We'll keep it short. There should be something close by. It makes logical sense to offer food so close to where no food is allowed, but you're expected to wander around for ages."

"Yeah, we go through the gift shop," Xander confirmed. "We can pass through there. What kind of thing were you thinking of?"
 
"No it's alright, I didn't think of my feet either. But it'll be grand, I'd be shocked if there's not something right by us. As for him... I still think it'd be good if we get him one silly gift and one real one. I love pranking him, but I don't love getting him a gag gift and nothing else, because then it just feels mean," She explained, once more showing her duality between an agent of chaos and a loving, thoughtful wife.

"You two are both welcome to get something too, of course," She said brightly, "I probably won't get anything myself. Or, whatever stupid thing we get Dark will be mine, because the real joy is in teasing him."
 
"What if every time you got him something, you flipped a coin to see if it should be a gag gift or a real one. Then it will be a double surprise for him," Alec mused. "I don't want anything. The experience was enough."

"Same here, but I can help you pick something out," Xander offered with a grin.
 
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