How Green Becomes Wood

"Yeah, I know," She replied in a low, distant voice, "but the fact it happened at all, and knowing, or guessing, why the thought of making that call occurred to her in the first place... and I'm so glad it didn't happen like this, and couldn't have, but it's difficult not to think what might have happened had Ivy been born a year earlier, or she hadn't tracked you both down, or even if she hadn't just answered the phone. I know we never would have been deported, we both have citizenship and no ties to anything that could revoke it, but he might have been taken into custody, and I can guess what would happen then, to the rest of us. I was scared to death."
 
"Well, I'm glad your citizenship will never be questioned," She replied, taking a breath, "and I'm glad ours will not be again. At least not by any legal authority... It's settling in with a new neighbor that's bringing it all up again, I think. I'm glad she's different, and that if Cooger genuinely likes her, it means I can trust she's different, because he gets along with everyone, but you can't get bull**** past him."
 
Cooger hung out with them for a little while longer, bouncing Ivy on his knee and chatting with his friends and nephews before eventually going home. After he had, when Dark and Daizi were alone, they took turns sharing what they knew about Xander, what they knew about Lex, and what they knew about Cooger.

Soon enough, Friday came, and Dark dropped his sons off at a small, unassuming, but nice enough townhome. There wasn't much to say about it. It was a short, single-level one wedged between a two-story home on either side, and Milo, having just gotten off the bus shortly before the twins arrived, stood awkward and fidgeting on the front stoop.
 
Xander had done his best to continue as if nothing had gone wrong, to act as normal as possible. It seemed to be working, at least as far as he could tell. He felt a lot more relaxed about everything. So, when it came time to go visit Milo at the his place, he didn't feel nearly as nervous. He wore his leather jacket over a tank top and jeans with only a bit of wear and no holes to try to make at least somewhat of a good impression despite the clip-on earring and his resting-scowl-face. Alec had also toned down his outfit and was only wearing three colors today! Red, white, and green with his long grey coat over top. He was only wearing a bit of makeup to try to hide a couple of pimples and overall smooth out his skin a bit. Xander got out first, mumbling a goodbye to Dark, and Alec squeezed Dark's arm as he thanked him before hopping out.

"Milo! Hi!" Alec called out cheerily as if they hadn't just seen each other at school. "This is a nice place."

Xander gave Milo a bit of a salute as he looked around, assessing his surroundings.
 
Milo shrugged, turning behind him as if looking at the house behind him for the very first time, "Yeah. Thanks. Um, you can come in?" He opened the door and let them inside, following in after them. The inside of the house also wasn't particularly striking. It wasn't strongly aesthetic or planned like the Dark-Wahid, Hollis, or Appelbaum home, it just looked like the people who lived there bought things they thought were cute and put up things they had accumulated. There were pictures of children and grand children on the wall, and just about a million tiny sculptures of bichons were scattered about the place. True to form, when Milo and the twins walked in, one absolutely decrepit looking white dog hobbled towards them as quickly and excitedly as it could.

Bending and scratching the dog behind its ear, Milo said, "This is Paisley," and then, walking more into the living room, since the front door more or less opened into it, he spied around an arm chair, where his grandmother was sleeping, and seemed almost to be checking if he was still alive. Satisfied, he went back to the twins and said, "My grandad is still at work, he'll be home later."
 
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Alec went in first and automatically looked for the salt bowl, one toe going for the heel of the other shoe. He caught himself just in time to keep from fully taking off his shoe. This was not his home. There was no salt bowl or place to take off shoes. He did his best to disguise the motion as bending down to see the dog. It was still awkward. "Hello, Paisley!" he said softly.

Xander did not look for the salt or try to take off his shoes. Primarily because he watched his brother make the mistake instead of him. "What's he do?" he asked because that seemed like the type of question to ask.
 
"He's a bus driver, but for like... public transport, not school buses. Obviously." He replied, noticing but not mentioning Alec's weird action, "She's fourteen, ancient, and undying, I think. We can, um... Go to the scrapbooking room, I guess. So we don't wake my grandma. Do you... want something to drink?" He asked, because it was what you were supposed to do.
 
"Nah, I'm good," Xander said, stepping around Alec to follow Milo.

Alec gave the dog a little more attention, trying to be gentle and not hurt her, before standing up to follow. "No, but thank you for the offer!"
 
"Okay. If you get thirsty you can tell me. Just let me know, we've got... various, um... liquids." He gestured to the kitchen and then let them inside his bedroom. His bed was pushed up against the wall, facing the door, and two of the walls had a built-in desk with a number of shelves featuring a great number of craft supplies. Leaning against them was a reddish-purple base guitar, and against the open closet door was a bird cage. Milo's backpack sat by the desk, and a single dufflebag sat inside the closet door. Because the closet was open, it was really obvious it was mostly being used for storage.


"Sorry it's cramped," he said awkwardly, "the birdcage used to be where the bed is, but they needed to put a bed in for me. I said I would be fine on the couch."
 
"Do you have a bird?" Alec asked, going straight for the birdcage.

Xander held back, moving more slowly as he took everything in. He didn't want to snoop, but the crafting supplies and the guitar caught his attention. He moved toward the guitar and looked at it with interest while still keeping a respectful distance. It was a cramped room, but not awful.
 
"My grandparents do. Cyclone and Comet. They're parakeets." He gestured, "The blue one is Cyclone, and the green and yellow one is Comet. And the bass was my dad's. You can, um, sit, if you like."
 
Alec frowned and poked the bars lightly. "I've never really liked birds as pets," he mumbled. Then froze, worried he'd said something wrong. "Um, but they are very pretty."

Xander found a spot on the floor and plunked himself down. "Is your dad not in the picture?" he asked bluntly. "I haven't heard you mention him before."

Alec rolled his eyes. Whatever faux pas he might commit, at least Xander would distract with a bigger one.
 
"They're alright. They can be noisy." Milo replied, looking into the cage, and then sort of tensing and shifting and Xander's question, "He's not, but, not because he, you know... left. Well, he did leave, or shuffled, I guess, but not in a... off to buy milk... way... Um." He shook his head, "When I was eight, he got sick. So."
 
"That sucks," Xander said. "Dunno if that's better or worse than off to buy milk and never coming back."

Alec sighed and went to Milo's bed. "Can I borrow this for a moment?" He didn't wait for a reply before taking the pillow and moving around to smack Xander with it.

"Hey! What'd I do?" Xander protested, holding up an arm.

"Didn't I teach you any manners? Did no manners stick?" Alec scolded, smacking his opposite shoulder. He wasn't hitting hard, and the pillow was pretty soft, so there was no threat of any real injury. "Stop being rude!"

"I'm not being rude! I'm being interested in another person's backstory!" Xander grabbed the end of the pillow and held tight.

Alec pulled back so it was a tug-of-war with the pillow. "Backstory? He's not a character in a story! Be nice!"

"Fine." Without relinquishing his hold on the pillow, Xander looked at Milo and said as politely as he could manage while fighting over a pillow, "I am terribly sorry to have trampled so rudely on a sensitive subject."
 
He did laugh a little bit at the twin's antics, sliding down to sit on the floor with them, "It's okay. I mean, it happens, right? And I think I prefer it this way, because I... know that... he wouldn't have done it, if he had a say in any of it. But it does mean my future is a little screwed up, because that's in my medical history, and you can break generational stuff. Harder to break DNA stuff. They actually..." He looked up at the birds, even now that he was sitting, "Since I'm sure you're curious, divorced way when I was a little kid, my mom and dad, so I don't really remember living with both of them, and I'd be with my dad during the week and my mom on the weekends. At the time her work schedule was really intense, but he had more say over his hours."
 
Alec surrendered the pillow to Xander and reached over to rest his hand gently on Milo's arm. "I'm sorry about your father. That's... really painful to lose someone like that."

Xander didn't say anything at first. He reached up from where he sat and carefully tossed the pillow back onto the bed. "Yeah," he finally said, "it sucks big time, but better that than choosing to just... leave."
 
Milo shrugged, pulling away but not because he took issue with the touch, "It's better to have closure, I think. Don't have to sit around hoping maybe he'll change his mind. Don't have to decide if I'll forgive him if he does. I guess I wish I could still live with him, though."
 
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