How Green Becomes Wood

"I think whoever made it just wanted the rules to be 'don't topple the tower,'" Milo commented, watching Xander make his move, suspecting he knew who was going to cause it to fall the first time. "I bet engineers are really good at the game. I wonder what New Mexico will be like."
 
"That, or the worst as they spend forever picking a piece," Xander grumbled, giving Alec a significant look as his brother carefully examined each and every block.

"I read that it's pretty hot and arid, but some areas have gorgeous desert scenery and cool old paintings and dwellings and stuff," Alec said, frowning at the piece choices. "Don't rush me! I'm determined to not lose this time."
 
"I hear if you go north to where it's cold, the stars are even prettier, but out in the desert is really good," Alec said, finally deciding on a piece.

"You hear a lot of things," Xander remarked.
 
"There’s a lot to learn about the world, I guess... " Milo pulled a piece and froze as the tower wobbled, only moving on when it didn't topple. "I guess I don't really care where I go. Or what it looks like. It's just what life is like."
 
"Unless you've decided to reinvent your entire personality, and maybe your mum, it'll be exactly like it is here and the last few places you've lived," Xander remarked.

Alec frowned. "Xander."

"No, I'm serious," Xander said calmly. "Everywhere's the same the world over. Hopes, dreams, nightmares, problems, successes... it's just the set dressing that changes. It's the people that make the place, not the other way around, and how you react to those people is an even bigger part of that. It's like a stew. You might change some things around to make it a little more this or that, but at the end of the day, a stew is a stew." He flicked a piece out of the tower so fast it shivered but didn't fall.

Alec failed to see the connection between living somewhere new and stew, but he was too shocked by his brother's semi-philosophical statement - good or not - to form any other words.
 
"I know," Milo said, making his move, and then he stared back down at his lap. "I know. I really do. That's why I've stopped..." He shrugged, squeezing his ankle, "Trying. To be different. And know everyone. And be known. It's the same everywhere, and I have to be there, but I try to be as small a part of the equation as possible. I work best as a reminder."
 
"I don't think that's quite true," Alec protested, forgetting to take his turn. "I can only speak for myself, but if you have to leave tomorrow, I would not regret knowing you. Not one bit! Things can change, you can be different, places can be different, you never know."

"I'm pretty sure he does know," Xander pointed out mildly. "When the situation you're stuck in with absolutely no control doesn't change, you're fighting an uphill battle. We didn't know we could be different or have things different when living with our mum. We'd still be exactly the way we were before if we hadn't landed with Dark and Daizi. They gave us something different. They showed us we could be different. We'd still be the same otherwise."

Alec looked down, trying to think of an argument. "We just... She was trying. We just needed to wait a little more."

Xander huffed, "That's all we did. We waited for her. Remember how much time we spent waiting for her to get off work at random places like the library?"

"I liked waiting at the library," Alec stated.

"It was waiting," Xander said. "We waited, and waited, and kept waiting, until we stopped waiting. And that's when things change. When you stop waiting for someone else to change things for you. We didn't get much choice in the matter, but that's where the change happened. When we stopped waiting."
 
Milo shifted awkwardly, percieving this comment was not really about him, and he wasn't sure if he should interject. It wasn't a great situation, and he wondered if it was normal for conversations to go this way when you had friends over. "Um." He said, hoping for some kind of low. He almost mentioned to Alec the situation with his mother, but it still really wasn't something he liked to talk about. Not over a game of Jenga, especially. Although it seemed likely the tower would topple if he dropped that information. "I think when I go to college, maybe things will be different. Because then it won't be me and my mom, it'll just be me, so I can... I don't know. Do more."
 
"That seemed like a reasonable goal," Alec agreed quietly.

"I don't want," Xander started to say harshly, but then he caught himself. He might be able to talk like that to Alec without his brother taking offense or misunderstanding, but Milo was different, and a different type of sensitive. He took a deep breath, trying to think of a better way to express himself. "Let's not talk about moving or mothers anymore," he said as neutrally as he could manage, though the agitation still made his voice a little raw. "I'm feeling uncomfortable."

Alec smiled and nodded. "You're right, let's talk about something happier! Like how Milo is amazing at this game."
 
"It's a weird and useless talent, but it's my weird and useless talent." Milo said, completely fine with not pushing the conversation. He was pretty sure Xander was going to tell him that it was his, Milo's, job to instigate change, or something, but it never seemed like there was much he could go with that. And he was only two years from graduating, he had made it this far. "Is... there... um... anything weird you can do?"
 
"I can fold my eyelids inside out. Is that weird?" Alec asked. "It's incredibly useless, and I think it's weird."

"He can also spread glitter wherever he walks like some kind of friggin' pixie," Xander grumbled.

Alec glanced at Xander's back, which still glittered peacefully in the light, and glanced at Milo. "True... I may or may not be able to do that, too. But that's my skill, not yours! You're supposed to say what your weird skill is."

Xander considered the question. "I can... I'm really good at those fidget puzzle things. You know, the ones with like the metal or wood pieces that you have to move just right to untangle? I'm good at those. I dunno if that's weird."

"He used to be able to blow milk bubbles out of his nose, too, but he hasn't done it in a long time. Not since..." Alec paused dramatically, "The Incident!"
 
Milo's eyes focused on the glitter before glancing at Alec. Then he pushed up his glasses and said nothing about it. He wasn't going to put himself in the middle of them.

"The incident?" He asked, "What incident?"
 
"It was horribly gross and messy!" Alec said cheerfully.

Xander nodded as he studied the tower. There weren't many "safe" blocks to remove anymore. "Right. So you don't want to hear about it."

Alec leaned closer. "It was shortly after we started third grade," he began dramatically.

"But, he's going to tell it anyway," Xander grumbled, not actually too surprised or concerned. He picked a block and pulled slowly. It started moving fairly easy and then caught. He held his breath as he tugged it free. The tower wobbled, yet still didn't fall.
 
"I promise I have heard grosser things," Milo commented, frowning at the tower. If Alec got lucky, he was set up to fail. Thank god he was in the right turn order, otherwise he was done for. "It's a milk bubble, I'm certain I've encountered worse."
 
"Well," Alec drawled out, not even paying attention to the tower at the moment even though it was his turn. "See, Xander had recently discovered this brand new talent of squirting milk out of his nose, and he'd upped the stakes to milk bubbles. He was a little late to the skill or else he would have been very popular in our kindergarten and first grade classes. Maybe even second grade! But by third grade, people were moving on to bigger and bolder things, like belching the alphabet backward. Even so, he still had a mini following, if only for the lunch period."

Xander shifted how he was sitting and propped his elbow on his knee. "Is this a short story or an epic? And it's your turn, by the way."

Alec ignored him. "During one fateful lunch period, people had gathered around to see my brother's skills in producing food and beverages from bodily orifices. They were quite hooked. Even the kids who didn't like us hung out at the back to watch. He proceeds to produce the milk bubbles in time to 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm.' Musical genius at its highest!"

"Speaking of height, the tower is still tall," Xander drawled.

"He's really into the act, really putting all he's got into it. Only, there's one problem that he failed to take into account." Another dramatic pause. Alec leaned closer to Milo. "Allergy Season!"
 
Laughing at Alec's delivery, Milo leaned away from Alec, "I think you're making it worse by the way he's telling the story." He grinned a little bit, but looked down like he was hiding it, just like he did with every other emotion, "I was never really a kid who was into that kind of humor. I thought it was lazy."
 
Alec settled back. "So did I, but what was I to do? Pretend I didn't know this person who looked exactly like me? We were completely indistinguishable from each other until fourth grade, and even then, most people still had trouble. Anyway!"

Xander groaned, "You're going to keep going?"

"Allergy season!" Alec announced.

"I've gone invisible and soundless, haven't I? I no longer exist on your plane of existance."

"I am sure that by now you can guess where this is going. While neither of us are horrid sufferers of pollen, it does tickle the nose, particularly when you are in the habit of ejecting random things out of that orifice." Alec gave a shorter pause now before stating flatly, "He sneezed. It was a gloriously disgusting and messy sneeze that positively coated half of our fellow students. Not only students, though, that would have been disgusting but not so bad. No, the vice principal of the school happened to be walking by, and some two weeks earlier, Xander had happened to leave a pudding cup on her chair. Both incidents complete accidents, of course, but preventable, and the dear woman had just bought herself a lovely new outfit. The same outfit he sneezed milk all over. Naturally, he ended up in the principal's office, and our mum got called. She was absolutely furious at the food wastage and what she called an abuse of our body's natural functions, so that ended that. Oh, and the fact that he had a bloody nose for almost two hours following that incident, which he then somehow got onto the principal's arm." Alec triumphantly tugged a block free, and the whole tower dramatically toppled down around them.

"Riviting. You make history come alive," Xander said dryly.
 
Milo nodded, "Yeah that's... pretty bad. It's times like that it's good to change schools all the time, but I guess in third grade I wasn't doing that yet, either. Abuse of bodily functions is a new one, though. How did you get the pudding cup on her chair? I feel like growing up, I was never around the vice principal, much less where she sat. I don't even know what that room looks like."

Then the tower collapsed, and, watching it fall, Milo didn't flinch at all. "Oh. You lose." He pushed his glasses up, "It's weird, the game doesn't really have a winner, does it?"
 
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Xander glanced around, realizing that what Milo had said was true. "Huh. Hadn't thought about that." He started to pick up the pieces.

"About the pudding," Alec began, but Xander put his hand over it. "That is a secret," he said blandly. "No one is ever to know. Ever. If I told you, I'd- Hey!" He jerked his hand away from Alec. "Don't lick my hand, you weirdo!" He wiped his hand vigorously on his pants.

"Then don't put your hand on my mouth," Alec retorted.
 
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