How Green Becomes Wood

"S'alright," Xander mumbled to Dark. He moved his pencil out of Ivy's reach. "No, sorry, you can't have the pointy ones." He presented her with his largest eraser. "Here, you can play with this, but I warn you, it tastes terrible."
 
"She is going to eat it anyway," Dark advised him, while Ivy immediately began to chew on the eraser. When Dark removed it from her mouth and replaced it with something she could chew, the now-damp eraser was decorated with tiny tooth marks. Frowning at it, Dark asked, "What do you think your aunt would do?"
 
"Do if she had to deal with someone who drooled and tried to eat everything she could get her hands on," Dark replied, setting the eraser where it was temporarily out of reach. "Or I suppose if she were just handed something like it."
 
Xander snorted in amusement. "I don't see that going over well. Not at all." He still felt a little shaky, but he was able to guide himself back to the present and what he was doing well enough. "I think she'd try to be calm and polite while inwardly freaking out.
 
"Sure," Xander agreed. He paused in the middle of trying to make a grid since Ivy had wrinkled his last piece and he didn't feel like going to get another. "Do you think she and Tristan know each other? Like, what do you think would happen if we had them both over at the same time?"
 
"I would guess they know each other, or at least know about each other." Dark answered, gently pulling Ivy into his lap, where she very quickly snuggled up, "I imagine it would be shocking for them both to be confronted with each other, if they were unprepared. Have you told Ciara about him?"
 
"Nope, not my business," Xander said bluntly. "If there's any kind of bad blood, I don't want anything to do with that. I don't know if Alec's told her, either. He might have. He does like to talk."
 
"I dunno. Hadn't thought about it. I'm not really the 'invite people over' type," Xander pointed out. "I just figure they're all busy with their own lives." He checked his watch. "Speaking of, time for me to get going." He hurriedly finished the last problem in his math homework before closing up his books.
 
Ivy grabbed onto his hand with her brightest smile, looking up at her brother like he was just so amazing.

"Say bye-bye, Ivy," Dark told her, pulling her hand back, "Bye-bye," when he said it the second time, she recognized the word and waved her hand again.
 
Xander settled for a wave and went to put his stuff away. He washed his hands thoroughly once upstairs, but he managed to wait until after he'd put everything away. They he stuck his head into the music room and reminded Alec what time it was. Alec said goodbye to Daizi and hugged her before running to get ready. In no time at all, they were both out of the house, Alec for the next hour until Dark picked him up and Xander for the next two.
 
Daizi squeezed Alec tightly, wished him luck, and let him go, although she walked down the stairs with them since she was heading that way too. After they were gone, Dark and Daizi both sat down on the floor with their daughter and realized, if it wasn't for Ivy, with how much the twins did each week, they would have a lot of alone time. Oh well. Ivy was overcome with delight over the sight of her mother, and Daizi was more than happy to scoop her up and play with her.
 
When Dark came to pick Alec up after his class, Alec was holding his arm and wincing. He'd messed up his timing and had taken a tumble while on the wheel, but it was just a bruised shoulder. It would heal up fairly quickly but be a pain for a few days. The person with the used Cyr wheel was there for Alec to look over and potentially sign the contract for, and they were fine with Alec trying it out. In fact, they encouraged him to. His bruised shoulder meant he couldn't do as much as he wanted to, but he was able to try it out enough to feel it was not too different from the practice wheels the gym offered. He was happy with it but still looked to his father to see what he thought of it all. The woman selling the wheel tried not to appear nervous, but she kept glancing Dark's way and kept more than the usual amount of distance between them.
 
When Dark got out of the car and saw Alec was hurt, he came quickly over to check up on him, doing his best not to be embarrassing or overbearing, but they had too many bad injuries to overlook it.

As they looked over the wheel, Dark stood silently with his arms crossed. He didn't know anything about cyr wheels and therefore didn't know what to look for or what questions to ask, besides why they were getting rid of it, just in case he was able to detect if they were hiding anything. He noticed the distance and the glances, but he preferred it that way. People didn't try to swindle those who intimidated them.

Ultimately, he said it seemed alright to his eyes, but made a point of going back over the contract with the woman, just to be absolutely certain of the terms and the cost.
 
When asked why she was getting rid of the wheel, the woman said that life changes meant she didn't have the time to devote to the wheel, and since she had two, had decided to give one up. She kept the other for sentimental reasons "just in case."

It was a simple contract splitting the cost of the wheel into three payments, no interest, and the agreement that if Alec decided he did not want the wheel or could not finish the payments, she would give back his money with a slight inconvenience fee and he'd return the wheel. Then he signed, gave her his first payment, they shook hands, and Alec left with his very own cyr wheel.
 
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