How Green Becomes Wood

Milo hadn't thought Xander had forgotten about him, he just figured he was busy. The last time they talked, they had discussed him having a day to play with the band, just to jam. He figured it was difficult to organize, and didn't think much else about it.

When Dark, Daizi, and Ivy made it home, Ivy was asleep, and fortunately managed to stay asleep when they brought her inside, thanks to having a full belly immediately before being put in the car after so much time outdoors. Daizi hurried upstairs to shower, because she had just enough time to shower, change, and dry her hair before needing to leave again to meet her friends.

In the meantime, after checking to make sure the boys were okay, Dark brought the baby monitor out to his shed to get some work done there.
 
After a while of pondering things, Xander decided he was in his own head again too much, so he asked Alec to talk to Peter about a jam session with Milo and then headed out to his shed. What followed was a bunch of back-and-forth via text between Peter and Alec, Alec and Xander, and a little bit of Peter and his mother. Finally, when they'd decided what potential dates worked for them all, Xander texted the dates to Dark to make sure they were all good for him before texting them to Milo to see which date worked best for him. Technology made things a lot easier and a lot stranger when arranging meetings between friends.
 
Dark confirmed all of the dates were find, and Milo pretty quickly replied with which one worked for him. He was excited. Excited and anxious. Maybe mostly anxious. They were just his friends, they'd be fine if he wasn't that good, but he still worried he'd not be good enough and waste all of their time. He didn't share any of that, of course, he had already expressed similar concerns in the past, and he was trying to do better about not psyching himself out of things before they happened. He was just going to be seeing his friends, that was all.

Once Daizi had left, Dark alternated between working in his shed and caring for his baby girl, but near the end of the day, while Daizi was still up, Dark tried to catch Xander alone.
 
Xander was out back in the garden doing some Judo drills that didn't require a mat. It involved a lot of moving in a square shape and practicing his stances and mobility. Boring, but necessary. Sometimes he mixed it up by challenging his balance with some leg throws. It was almost meditative. He notice Dark seemed to be looking for him and paused. "'Sup?" he asked with a mix of caution and curiosity.
 
"Sure," Xander agreed, now more curious than cautious. He followed Dark to his shed, wondering if he'd made a change to the circus he wanted to show him or if he was still fighting with the puzzle box.
 
Dark led him inside and sat down in his normal chair, the puzzle box sitting neatly in the center of the desk, in better shape than it had ever seemed before. He picked it up, moved one of the little dials to his own satisfaction, and then handed it to Xander. It was heavier than it had been before, and sounded like there were things inside of it now. "I finished it," he announced.
 
Xander looked over the box, Dark's words taking a second to register with him. "Wait, you mean you finally finished it?" He grinned and hefted the box. "What'd you do, fill it with marbles?"
 
Xander had been poking the box curiously, but he stopped at Dark's pronouncement. "Really? But you've been working on it for, like, weeks! This is like your, um, what's that phrase... opium magnum? Why would you give it to me?"
 
"I think months, now," Dark commented idly, watching how Xander immediately began to fiddle with it, "but it is not my magnum opus, that will always be my carnival, at least as far as my carvings go. And, I realized: I know how to solve the puzzle. I know the steps to open it. It is any other box to me, but you do not know how it works. So you can truly appreciate it."
 
"Cool," Xander said with reverence as he ran his fingers over the surface of the box. "I guess that makes sense. If you're really sure." He glanced at Dark. "How long you think it'll take me to figure it out?" he grinned. He had no intention of actually rushing the box. It was too pretty for that! Still, he was curious how Dark thought his puzzling skills measured up to this box.
 
"That depends on how good you are at puzzles," Dark replied, his eyes sparkling, "And how long you intend to spend on it. If you only spend ten minutes a day on it means you will be at it for much longer than if it is all you do all day. It was twenty-one steps. Well," He turned his head to the side, "More, if you count the steps needed to solve the individual puzzles."
 
"Individual puzzles?" Xander asked with a sharp glance at Dark. "You mean this thing is a puzzle layer? Huh. Cool." He turned his gaze back to the puzzle box and started gently nudging dials and levers. "I bet I'll get this thing solved in no time flat!" He looked at Dark almost sidelong. "Thanks. For the box," he said a little shyly. "It's real cool." He almost didn't want to solve it, but he'd try.
 
"Why do you think it took me so long?" Dark asked, pointing out to Xander how certain sides had more than one puzzle mechanism on it, and how you needed to figure out the order to solve them in order to get other puzzles and sides to activate. It was a bit cruel, but he had set out to build a complicated puzzle, which is exactly what he did.
 
"Daizi says I may find it easier to relax if I learn to do thinks with less intensity. But I cannot leave things until I am satisfied." Dark said, pleased at the look in Xander's eyes, and glad he had something to focus on, now.
 
Xander shook the box lightly and then asked, "Is the thing inside breakable? Do I need to be worried about that?" He doubted it, but best to know in advance. He was already fiddling with some of the dials.
 
"If you are rough with it, but it should not with normal use. Just do not attempt to smash it if you struggle to solve it and I do not think you will have many problems." Dark answered, watching Xander fiddle and knowing exactly when he was and was not on the right track. "You will have to let me know when you finish it."
 
Xander glanced at Dark with a brief expression of horror. "Smash it? Only a complete lunatic would smash it." He paused to debate. "Or someone who's spent a bunch of consecutive hours trying to solve it, I guess. I'll take breaks." He started toward the door, still poking at the dials. "If this goes left... then does this piece go up?"
 
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