How Green Becomes Wood

"It's interesting Judo makes competing a choice," Sloan murmured, wondering for the first time if she ever has a choice ground up to attend meets, "I actually think it's a strong choice to not compete, it keeps it about the love of the sport rather than the love of winning. I just didn't peg you as that kinda athlete."
 
Xander shrugged again, his favorite response. "It's just... different. Don't really see it as being my thing."

"To compete or Judo?" Alec asked in confusion.

"Competing in Judo. Dunno, it's hard to explain," Xander said. He stood up. "Anyway, it doesn't matter because I'll be at a birthday party, not a Judo competition."

"True, but I want to talk about it later," Alec said, standing with Xander. "But first, party!"
 
Sloan couldn't help but roll her eyes a bit at the clear diversion, "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but seriously, you're allowed to just say, 'I don't want to talk about it.' You don't always need to try and divert people's attention by dangling keys in front of us. And, like, yeah, you can't go tonight, but I wasn't talking about if you should compete tonight, I thought we were talking about your overall opinions about competing."
 
"I don't have overall opinions on competing. None whatsoever other than maybe it's not as great as I thought it was," Xander said. "Besides, I haven't been that competative."
 
"That was a whole year ago. I was still very childish back then," Xander said with a completely straight face while Alec laughed behind him. "I have since put such childish things behind me."
 
Xander stared at her as he tried to work that out in his head. "What am I supposed to do with that?" he finally demanded. "If I accept the bet, I lose automatically. If I decline, that means I win, but it's a competition, which means I lose by winning."

"That is a head-scratcher," Alec agreed, watching them in amusement.
 
"Yeah, I don't see that as being competitive, I see that as trying to understand what was being said," Xander pointed out. "I mean, yeah, I guess I can see where you're coming from, but what about trying to understand something before turning it down or accepting it?"

Alec was pretty sure they were going to be late for class at this rate, but he was too entertained to tell Xander or Sloan.
 
Xander had already decided to forget all about it, mostly in confusion. "See you at your place, probably."

As they walked away, Alec asked, "Why didn't you tell me about the competions?"

"Because I wasn't ever going to do them, so it didn't matter," Xander told him.

"It'd be cool to see," Alec replied.

Xander grunted and headed for their next class.
 
Sloan truly did not believe Xander had woken up one day and decided he no longer yearned for competition, but the chances of him managing to successful remain uncompetitive around her seemed unlikely, so she'd let it ride.

The rest of the school passed by easily, all of the students, and much of the staff, seemed mostly ready to just get the first week over with, and weren't interested in dragging things out any longer than necessary.
 
Xander did as he'd agreed with Dark and focused on his studies. He tried all of them, but it wasn't easy to go from nothing to all, so he ended up picking just one, as Dark had originally suggested. One was easier.

The day ended, and they headed for the van with Xander calling out his usual offer to Milo, not expecting him to accept, but always willing if he did.

When they got in the car, Alec remarked, "You got earings for Sloan, didn't you?"

"Well, kind of," Xander admitted. "It's a nose ring. For the middle bit."

"Oh, a septum piercing?" Alec asked, surprised. "Wow. A real one?"

"No," Xander snorted as he started the van and checked before backing out of his spot. "It's a clip on, and not as nice as the ones Peter got her. It's just a little thing. I thought she might like being able to put it on when she leaves the house. I dunno. Peter's are way nicer, so maybe I'll forget it."

"It's kind of late to get anything else, but I think she'd understand if you didn't bring anything," Alec said. "Still... it's kind of what she wanted. I think you should give it to her anyway."

"I'll think about it," Xander muttered.
 
After school let out, Sloan hurried home so she could take a minute to rest and freshen up before her party. A friday birthday was pretty good, but Saturday was still the optimum day, she thought. Of course, her mom had a great deal to say about how the decorations ought to look and what food she had requested, but this time, at least, she had almost obliged with most of it, at least as far as the food went. After all, Blair couldn't be known as the hostess with bad food. The decorations still had her distinct influence, but Sloan had given up caring about those long ago. Nobody remembered them, anyway.
 
Alec changed clothes three times before deciding on what he liked, and then he asked Dark to approve it for him and for Daizi to pick a light, non-headache-inducing scent to go with it. That done, he had to wrap Sloan's gift. He'd meant to do it for her, but then creating the locker decorations had gotten in the way. It was actually two gifts. One was a shirt he'd found in a thrift store a few weeks ago that had delighted him. It was dark pink and had upside-down font that read, "This is my HANDSTAND shirt." It was extra long, presumably so it could be tucked in, and while he knew it wasn't necessarily Sloan's style, he thought she'd at least get a laugh out of it. The second gift was a small self-care box he'd put together for the ultimate spa day. It included a new loofa, several skin care products in sample-size bottles, socks, hair bands, and an assortment of face masks as well as a few other small things. He folded up the shirt and used that on top of the box before wrapping the whole thing.

Xander's gift was a simple golden nose ring that was supposed to clasp on the septum and make it look like a real piercing. He wasn't sure how comfortable it was and had considered trying it on before deciding that would be gross. It was a lot cheaper and less flashy than the earrings Peter had gotten and smaller than what Alec had gotten, but he thought maybe it would be something Sloan could use to get a little bit of freedom with. Exercise some rebellion. Just something to feel better about herself while being hideable from her mother. Then he changed clothes from his black school outfit to his black nicer outfit. His shirt even had a collar.

Then it was time to head over to Sloan's house.
 
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