How Green Becomes Wood

"I think it is because I have permission." Dark said morosely, rubbing his hands over his face. "I should have just done it, the thrill is in the act being criminal."

"Ah, don't I know it," Cooger replied, holding up his drink in a toast before taking a sip of it. "Probably a good idea. Maybe the day after tomorrow. I'm not sure if whatever his doctor put him on is going to leave him hung over tomorrow. But if you gave it to him tonight, he'd probably destroy his railings trying to install it before drilling through his hand."
 
"Ah, I see," Alec nodded. "That makes sense. Then I guess you'll have to find another criminal act to perform. Got any ideas?"

"Yeah, I'm not going to contribute to that mess," Lex chuckled. She hooked her thumb toward the table of food. "I'm going to grab me something to eat, then do you mind if I join you?"
 
"No," Dark sighed, walking off and plopping down onto the grass.

"No, I don't mind," Cooger said, waiting for Lex to get her food, and when she returned, he looked at her and said, "Sucks you didn't get to go to that competition. Hope Tobey isn't too bummed."
 
Alec followed Dark and asked, "Would you like for me to keep you company?" he offered.

Lex came back with a plat and sat down near Cooger. "He was a little disappointed but promised he'd get his friends to take pictures of all his wins to show me, which means I'll probably get lots of pictures of thumbs, skies, backs of heads, and babes," she told him. "This is only the second time I couldn't make it to an event of his. I think I'm more bummed than he is."
 
"Oh, sure, sure," Dark said, stretching out his legs. He looked again at his wife, and started to wave to her, but then laughed, knowing that he couldn't. "It is... pretty fun... being absolutely out of my mind. But also. I feel like I am in a different person's body." He turned his head and looked at all of Daizi's work, "I might steal her berries."

Cooger nodded, "I hear that's pretty normal for parents. I didn't want to go to my high school graduation, but it meant so much to my mom and dad, so I went. Can't really relate to the rest of it. But I bet he appreciates how few you've missed. Not all kids can say they had such present parents."
 
Alec smiled and leaned against Dark. "It is strange to have you like this, but I hope it works. I really do. But it's okay if you can't. We'll help Ivy. I promise. And I'll help you steal berries."

Lex snorted. "Yeah, pretty present," she muttered, a cloud crossing her face briefly. On most days, she was at peace with her past and had moved beyond it, but some days were worse. Days like today when she felt like a failure even though she knew good and well she wasn't. This was just a setback. Nothing more. She shook her head, trying to clear the darker thoughts from her mind. Not here, not now, she told herself firmly. "Sorry," she apologized to Cooger. "Bit of a flash back there. I wasn't exactly present for his first few years of life, and when I was, it took a while before he stopped resenting me for that."
 
"I do not know if it is going to work..." Dark said slowly, like the Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. He watched the clouds drift by languidly overhead for a little while, then he rolled over, getting a grass stain on his shirt, and 'snuck' over to the berries, "She will not see, and that's the ticket, but you cannot let her know I am sneaking around her like this."

Cooger shrugged, "You ain't gotta apologize. I've seen that look enough times. But anyway, you know. I'm not a parent or nothing, and I don't plan on ever being one, but what matters more? Screwing up for the first few years, or doing right by him for the rest? Plenty of people don't do better, either."
 
"I won't tell her," Alec promised. He bent down as far as he could and waddled after Dark, trying not to snicker too loudly.

"You're a good guy, Cooger," Lex said with a faint smile. "I gotta admit, I'm kind of surprised some girl hasn't snatched you up and made you her groom. Or guy, I suppose." She nibbled on a bite of potato salad and watched Dark crawling around. "Not that I'm saying you should, just that it seems good guys like you get preyed on a lot."
 
"I do not have a basket, but I do have big hands," Dark said, carefully and 'sneakily' picking berries, "Ivy cannot have these yet, unless they are pureed, but I you would say I cannot use a blender. But that is okay, the rest of us can have them. I know how to make whipped cream. But I do not think you would let me use the stand mixer."

"Well I'm outta shape and my hair is thinning now," Cooger mentioned casually, and then watched his friend, "but I don't know. I'm pretty good at seeing through people's BS, and I think life is way too short to get caught up in BS for the sake of a pretty face. 'Ventually, I just figured, maybe I just ain't the marrying type."
 
"I like them without whipped cream. They are nice and warm and fresh!" Alec said, popping a berry into his mouth. "If you save some, though, we can make puree and whipped cream."

"Fair enough for that," Lex grinned. "It took me a few tries to start seeing behind the curtain, but I think I'm getting pretty good at it now. I thought about marriage once upon a time, but, ultimately? I just couldn't see myself attaching myself to anyone like that. Some call it a commitment problem, but I'm not afraid of the commitment. I just haven't ever met someone I'd want to give half of my life to. How's your mom feel about your bachelor life? Mine still tries to set up dates for me, but that's a bit harder from a few states away.""
 
Dark ate one of the berries, and grinned, "I have never bought anything at a store that tastes better than what Tarot grows. She is the best. Everything she has ever grown is wonderful." He took a few more berries and 'snuck' over to where all the food was and put them there on one of the spare plates, believing nobody would recognize it had been him, "We have the whole bush, so I guess we could make them on another day."

"Not as much as you'd guess. She was a lawyer, she respects not rushing into things. I think she wishes she had grandchildren from me, but she more or less adopted them two, and their kids are basically her grandkids. Not that she sees them much. But my grandma, she was the one who really wanted to see me get married and start a family. Nana Lucy was basically the opposite of my mom. My mom wanted me to go to college, Nana said it didn't matter so much. Nana wanted me to start a family, Mom said it wasn't the only thing people are meant to do." Cooger answered, sitting back. "Dad was caught in the middle."
 
"I think that's a great idea!" Alec said. "Uh-oh, here comes Xander. We should hide!"

Xander wandered closer and paused when he spotted Alec and Dark. He started to say something, but Alec waved him into silence from behind Dark where his father couldn't see. Xander continued on his way toward Daizi as if he hadn't seen anything.

"Sounds like a both right, neither right kind of situation," Lex said, "but then again, I didn't go to college. Couldn't afford it. Skrimped and scraped and saved until I could afford trade school and picked welding first. After I made enough from that, learned from a blacksmith."
 
"I do not fear Xander," Dark said, but ducked down regardless, thinking Alec was instigating a game and wanting to go along with it.

Daizi was rocking Ivy in her lap when Xander came up, "Is everything okay?"

"I had a full ride to college with wrestling," Cooger admitted, "but I turned it down, I didn't want to go. I went to a few different trade schools, did some apprenticeships. Here I am. Blacksmithing is cool, though. Cooler than painting rooms, anyway."
 
"I do," Alec giggled. "Okay, we're safe now!"

"I think so, as long as you're okay with your husband stealing your berries," Xander said dryly. He sat down next to them. "How about you two?"

"Full ride, huh? Nice!" Lex praised. "I dunno. For some reason, I really suck at painting. Never could figure out why. Probably because I'm always in some sort of hurry, but I do feel like I'm slowing down these days."
 
"Good," Dark nodded before laughing hard.

"I needed to harvest them anyway," Daizi replied, amused. Maybe this is what he would've been like as a child, had he been allowed to be a child. "We're okay. I think she's tired, she normally goes to bed at around 7:45." Daizi rubbed Ivy's back, "I'm trying to figure out if I want to bring her inside or not. When the fireworks start going off, I don't want her to be alone and startled. But I don't want her to force her to stay awake and be cranky."

"Ah, it ain't that impressive. It wasn't because I was smart, I cheated off of Dark all through high school. My man barely spoke English but wrote better essays than me. I was just good at throwing my weight around." Cooger said, chuckling at the memory, "It's not a bad thing to slow down. A lot of people put a lot of bad thoughts onto that, but I'm just a mammal. We're all just mammals. Look at Enkidu," he nodded to the shepherd, lingering near them for hopes of snacks, "What does he do all day? What do cats do all day? That's how I want to be."
 
"Want to go try to steal a couple of flowers to present to your wife?" Alec suggested with waggle of his brows. "Maybe just a couple of small ones."

"You could bring out her play pen thingy so she can sleep if she wants or not," Xander suggested. "Then she won't be alone."

Lex looked at Enkidu and offered part of a hot dog. "What do you think, pup? You want to expose the secrets of the animal universe to us humans?" She smiled at the dog. "I threw my weight around in a different way. I was the school w**** and brawler. I thought that's how I could find meaning. Instead, I found drugs, a lot of scars, and a teen pregnancy. But I learned a lot along the way, too."
 
Dark turned to him, eyes wide, "Yes. I do want to do that. But not the roses, because I am... I am very high, and I think if I tried to bring her roses, I would hurt the bush, and I'd sooner destroy my entire carnival than hurt a single rose."

"Oh, that's a good idea." Daizi said, turning towards the house and pretending like she didn't hear her husband loudly talking about bringing her flowers so she could pretend to be surprise. "Can you help me get it out here?"

Enkidu gently took the piece of hot dog but then proceeded to gobble it up. Cooger was not a particularly stoic man and was unable to hide his shock at Lex's statement. "Well. Shit. Sounds like fun, though. Even if you weren't really having a healthy sort of fun. But the three of us were all using drugs and utilizing Dark's height and unfair ability to grow a beard at a stupid young age to buy booze underage. And with how those two were? I'm shocked Ivy isn't in her twenties. I swear I spent half of high school sleeping in the hallway. So, you know, can't judge. We actually used to talk about what seemed like a fool proof plan to sell, but we never acted on it."
 
"No, no roses," Alec agreed, giggling. "Absolutely no roses. How about you pick out the flowers, and I'll pick them so we don't hurt the flowers?"

"Sure," Xander said, standing up. "I think I can handle it on my own if you want to keep an eye on... whatever those two are doing plus the mini."

"I grew up in a pretty bad part of town, and we knew a guy who'd sell to whoever wanted the booze, no questions asked, as long as we paid the markup," Lex told him. "I guess I had a lot of fun I can't remember, and my memory's not what it's supposed to be thanks to the drugs, but I survived! Not all of my friends did, but a fair number managed to get themselves together." She took a sip of water. "Actually, Toby's father was my dealer. When I brought Toby home, he said something about selling the baby for drug funds. I can't remember exactly what he said, but that was my cue. I put Toby in the system the next day. The system ain't great, but it was better than what I could offer. I didn't get help for myself until a year later. I was one of those idiots that thought they could do it alone."
 
"Oh yeah, that is a good idea," Dark nodded, looking down at his hands and making fists to see his tattoos move, "'Cause I'm really strong. I always gotta be careful to make sure I do not break anything or hurt anything and sometimes even sober I throw something but I throw too hard because at my size even if I did not work out I would be strong but I do and I work for usable muscles not for aesthetics because if a bomb is dropped on my home again I want to be able to move the rubble off of my wife and also because it is fun." He squinted up at the sky. "It is a lot of fun, I enjoy it a lot. But I am strong and I do not think my fine motor skills are very good when I am this high."

"I can keep two eyes on them but I don't think it'll do as much as listening would," Daizi joked, although she was glad Xander wasn't watching his language to awkwardly avoid saying anything that would potentially even indirectly reference sight. "But thank you. We'll wait right here."

"You were a teenager," Cooger replied, looking at her for a little while, "Teenagers make stupid choices even when they aren't addicted to drugs. What's the point of sitting there, beating yourself up over something you did a decade ago? I mean, I'll call you demeaning words if you want, I just don't get the point." He turned to look over his shoulder, "Look at your house. Eventually you figured it out. That's what counts. Our plan was to use Daizi essentially as the mule, which she was on board with. And they'd make the transactions by stumbling into the buyer and doing the handoff like that, because nobody would expect the blind girl. I looked like a s***head, Dark was an Arab young man in New York less than a decade after 9/11, we thought her disability would outrank her ethnicity."
 
"I love how strong you are," Alec told him, following him. "I feel so safe with you! You are amazing."

"Alright, then you can keep two ears on them," Xander said cheerfully. "I'll be right back." He went inside and got the play pen. It took him a minute to get it partially folded so it could fit through the door. He got it out and unfolded it and made sure it was stable. "There we go. Where do you want it? I can pull it wherever."

Lex smiled at Cooger and reached out to lightly pat him on the shoulder, letting her hand linger only a little. "You're a good guy. I know I've come a long, long way, and don't get me wrong, I'm damn proud of what I've done, but sometimes I just hit a low patch. I'll get over myself and finish my pity party. Your idea for a deal sounds pretty useful! Unless she got the wrong person." She chuckled at that.
 
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