How Green Becomes Wood

"Apparently he never actually took those pictures," Sloan replied, leaning forward. She was, by all means, someone who only liked gossip when it didn't involve anyone she knew, "but we'll never know, because they tore out the film, which is an absolute dick move."
 
"I'm just surprised he was using film," Alec said. "Who uses film anymore?"

"My dad. He says it maintains the humanity of the subjects, though I'm not sure I understand what that means," Peter mused.
 
"I think it's pretty common for some people to be absolutely dedicated to some specific outdated form of technology, like... My dad, he's still absolutely dedicated to vinyl. He's got this huge collection--it actually makes it really easy because for his birthday I just go to an antique store and find some record that's not too banged up." Sloan replied, eating a few bites of her sandwich, "I don't know anything about photography."

Some time later into their lunch period, in the opposite corner, there was a little bit of a commotion: A few boys had surrounded someone. Their exact words were lost with distance, but they were laughing.
 
"I wonder what the joke is," Alec commented as he finished his last apple slice.

"I dunno, but I doubt it's all that funny," Xander said, He stood and gathered up his and Alec's trash. "Finished? Cool. I'll take that."

Peter willingly handed over his trash, and Xander took the table's trash toward the can, which was conveniently close to the gathering of laughing jokesters.
 
It was Milo, again, surrounded by other boys. Some of them were passing a brown sack lunch back and forth and laughing. In between them sat Milo, who wasn't even attempting to get his food back, and instead sat staring at the table.

"Hey, West," One laughed, shoving Milo, "Your mom pack your lunch?"

"Isn't a mommy joke the lamest joke you can make?" Milo asked flatly, and another kid repeated him in a stupid voice, "You're all the stereotypes of bullies."
 
Xander dumped the trash and started back toward his table. If the kid wasn't even going to try to help himself, why should he bother? Then he paused. Then grumbled to himself and turned back. It was a matter of utter simplicity to walk up behind and bullies and pluck the lunch sack from their hands. "At least his mother cared enough to give him a lunch."
 
Hearing Xander, Milo looked up at him, looking more tired than anything, but there was a hint of something else in his face, but it was hard to place what it was.

"Why can't you mind your own buisness?" One of the kids from earlier asked, rolling his eyes, "He's just a little pervert."

"He is just a pervet," Someone else repeated, shoving Milo again, this time hard enough that he would have banged his head on the table if he didn't have quick enough reflexes to catch himself.
 
"Says the boy who got in trouble just two weeks ago for hanging out around the girl's bathroom," Xander said with a pointed look. "Says the big, bold, brave boys shoving a sitting kid. What's next? Are you going to be so courageous as to kick him when he's laying down? Man, with little boys like you, what do we need grown men for, eh?" He smirked at the boys. They were bigger than him as footballers tended to bulk up, and martial artists like himself tended to be more streamlined and compact, but he wasn't backing down.
 
"We'd beat his ass standing if he wasn't such a pussy," He replied, shoving Milo to prove a point, and as Milo righted himself another kid grabbed his arm so he couldn't stop them from taking the glasses from his face.

"Why would I want to fight you!?" Milo asked, sounding genuinely angry and annoyed, "Give me my glasses!"

"No balls!" One said, making the rest of them laugh.

"Xander, what would your daddy do if you picked a fight?" The one sneered. In that moment, though, Dark wasn't watching: one of the girls was forcing him into a conversation he was clearly struggling to exit.
 
Xander stepped closer, casually tossing the lunch bag onto the table. "Make sure I didn't kill the idiots who started it." He moved fast, his hand snaking out to grab the arm of the boy who'd taken Milo's glasses. He'd always been fast, but Judo had helped him move not only faster, but more efficiently, concisely, and powerfully. His hand latched onto the boy's wrist and twisted down and toward him so he could retrieve the glasses. "Then he'd toss us all in detention where it's a free-for-all." He held the boy's arm down getting right in his face with a cold smile. "Think you'd be the big fish or the little fish in that pond?"
 
As soon as the arm was twisted into that position, Milo lunged to try to get his glasses out of the kid's hand, while the other kid tried to wrench his arm free. Someone else tried to pull Xander off, "You fucking narc," he hissed, "this doesn't even involve you!"

One of them looked over his shoulder and swore, and then shoved Xander, "You're going to get all of us in trouble!"

"Just give me my glasses," Milo pleaded, and the kid who held them, even as both Xander and Milo tried to free them reached over and did his absolute best to break them while the kid with Milo's lunch snuck away, deciding this was way more than he asked for. Fucking around with some nerd was fine, but he wasn't going to get into a brawl or go to detention over it.
 
Xander twisted around and elbowed the closest kid hard in the solar plexus before shoving him aside and heading for the kid with the glasses. "This doesn't involve you, either, you friggin henchman," Xander growled and aimed a sharp punch at his stomach. "Give him his glasses or I'll feed you a urinal cake!"
 
"Ugh, fine!" He squeaked out, doubling over from the punch and dropping the glasses and the elbowed kid recovered enough just to shove Milo again before running off, taking special care to 'accidentally' step on the glasses as he went. At this moment, Dark was slowly approaching, having noticed the struggle.
 
Stupid little fuckers," Xander grumbled, leaning over to pick up the glasses. He frowned at them then held them out to Milo. "They might still work. Maybe." He didn't even look at Dark. He knew he'd likely disappointed his dad, but he wasn't sorry.
 
"Thank you." Milo said quietly, looking at them. The arms were bent funny, and one lens had popped out, but miraculously they weren't cracked. "My grandma is going to kill me." Then he looked up to see a black, blurry figure approached and slumped down, anticipating he was going to get into trouble now on top of everything else.

"What was that about?" Dark asked, calmly, trying to get the facts before deciding how he felt about catching sight of Xander fighting again.
 
"A couple of jocks thought it'd be funny to deprive someone of sight and lunch," Xander said bluntly, nodding to Milo's glasses. "One of the girl's sicked them on him."
 
"And you came to defend him?" Dark asked, quietly surprised. He knew Xander was bold and that he cared more for others than he let on, but he was nonetheless impressed to learn that Xander was also the kind of person to put himself at risk for the sake of a stranger. This feeling might have been vaguely noticeable to Xander, but to Milo, who had scrambled to put his broken glasses on, their case looked dreadful.

"I'm sorry, sir, it's my fault" he said quickly, stumbling over his words, "They saw me with my camera and they thought I was doing something gross--I wasn't, I promise--but they thought so, and he," he gestured to Xander, having forgotten his name, "he tried to help, they only fought at all because of me, and I was just trying to ignore them."

Dark held up a hand to quiet Milo and then asked, "I have not seen you before. What is your name?"

"Milo H-West. Sir."

"It is nice to meet you, Milo. I am Mr. Dark, I teach history." He shook the hand Milo had awkwardly extended to him, and then looked over towards where the jocks had gone, "I am afraid they have begun to eat your lunch."
 
Xander looked away awkwardly at Dark's surprise, flushing only a little. "Yeah, well, they looked like they could use a good ass-kicking. Any excuse now that I can return the favor," he mumbled barely audibly. He did not go out of his way to cross paths with those jocks, but he hadn't forgotten how they used to treat him like how they were treating Milo. Well, tried to treat him. He wouldn't lay down and take it like Milo seemed to. He was fine walking past them in the halls, but standing by and just watching them mess with someone else... it didn't sit right with him. He followed Dark's look and frowned. "Idiots."
 
"As your teacher, tell an adult next time," Dark said, mostly to feel like he was doing his job. He left the other part of the sentence unsaid.

Milo looked between them and then followed their gaze to his tormentors and swore. Then, he whipped his head around to Dark, "I'm sorry, I meant--"

"It is okay. Do you have money for the cafeteria line?"

"No..."

"That is okay. Go get in line, explain what happened. I will go talk with them." Dark said, gave a little nod to Xander, amd walked off.

Very quietly, then, Milo said, "he's terrifying.
I have no idea how i haven't seen him before."
 
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"He got a ridiculous amount of paternity leave and this is his first day back," Xander replied. "You should get moving if you want to eat." He indicated the broken glasses. "You can probably twist those into a functioning shape."
 
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