How Green Becomes Wood

"I'm sure shell be past it in no time. She's too curious to be shy," Alec chuckled.

Xander nodded. "She is that, and it'd be okay if she decided to stay shy. It just means she'd be a friend worth working for."

Alec gave Xander a sideways look, but Xander didn't seem to notice as he was cleaning up his lunch. "True. Very true."
 
"Curiosity is cute," Milo said, finishing up the rest of his lunch, "I guess shyness is on a spectrum. As long as she's able to handle normal life, it's not too bad. I'd guess it wouldn't be, anyway."
 
"True, but that was just one rough day," Alec assured him. "A pretty bad day, but everyone has those. Then days like today, today's been pretty good. No presentations or anything!"
 
"Well," Alec began, but Xander gave him a slight nudge.

"Come on, man, it's gotta be different at least now that you've got us to bug you," Xander smirked. "A distraction from your worries by making you worried about something else."
 
He looked at them both for a few moments and then lifted his bag to his shoulder, "I guess it is different. But it's all different. Different doesn't mean... comfortable, you know?"
 
"Never said it was," Xander said calmly as he stood with Milo. "Anyway, I'll talk with my folks and see when's a good time for you to come over. About when would work for you?"

"We could have a sleep over!" Alec cheered, following them.

"Guys don't have sleepovers," Xander stated.

"Then what do you call it when guys stay at each other's houses, watch scary movies, or go fishing together ridiculously early in the morning?" Alec challenged.

"Crashing at their friend's place."
 
"On the weekend, I guess. I don't really ever have anything going on besides school. My grandparents think I should think about getting a job." He looked at Xander, "Why are you always so worried about what guys do or don't do?"
 
"Tell them the only job you can get right now would threaten your grades at school because it would take away all of your homework hours and create so much exhaustion that you won't be able to retain new information," Alec said frankly.

"Why do you think I'm worried about it?" Xander asked.
 
"Connotation. 'Sleepover' implies pillow fights, talking about crushes, and painting nails," Xander explained. "'Crashing' is more utilitarian. Girls can totally crash at someone's place, too. A majority of guys don't want the stuff involved in a sleepover, and a large number of girls, too, from what I hear."
 
"Does a sleepover imply that, though?" Milo asked curiously, "I feel like all a sleepover implies is that you're spending the night at someone else's place for fun reasons. Crashing at someone's place feels like there was a low-level emergency or you're too drunk to drive."
 
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"It implies that to a lot of people, and crashing at someone's house does not imply that level of severity to a lot of people," Xander replied with a slight sigh, heading into the classroom. "At least, it hasn't to any of the people I've heard or talked to. Except the crashing because you're drunk does happen, too. You could say you're crashing at my house after, I dunno, going to the movies, and I bet no one would think twice."

"They'd think twice about the fact that you have friends, not the crashing bit," Alec teased his brother gently.
 
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Milo shrugged, not saying it but admittedly feeling like it made sense that it was Xander who had strong feelings about the differences between a sleepover and 'crashing' and which one 'guys' did. "I still don't think you really plan to crash somewhere. Like, we wouldn't plan 'I am going to go over to your house on Friday and crash,' unless there was some external activity the day before or day after. If the entire plan is to go over to someone's house and spend the night..."
 
Xander plunked down in his seat and rubbed his brow. "Seriously, dude? Fine, fine, crashing is whatever the hell you want, sure," he groaned. "Then what word am I supposed to use according to your vocabulary?"
 
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