How Green Becomes Wood

Come morning, Daizi... slept in.

Ivy was confused why she didn't get her morning milk, and instead was directly given breakfast, but even though she didn't understand where her Mama was, she was easily distractable. Dark left ibuprofen and a glass of water for her, but since he had agreed to work, he couldn't stick around to ask how she was feeling when he woke up. Using their braille printer, he left a note promising to call and check on her, but then had to get ready for work, doing his best to get both himself and Ivy ready for their days without causing too much noise.
 
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Alec was just asking Dark a couple of things about looking after Ivy and Daizi when Tristan called Dark.

When Dark answered, Tristan's tone was a little tighter than usual. "Mr. Dark, would it be possible for you to come a little early today? Even half an hour? Anything? It was not prearranged, so I understand if you decline, but it would be most helpful."
 
Dark hesitsted for a moment, glancing upstairs, "...I suppose I can," he answered slowly, bouncing his noisey baby on his hip, "Is there any particular reason? We are still getting set up this morning." He glanced at Alec, wordlessly asking if he was okay taking Ivy early, because he had promised to work for Tristan... but he was looking forward to his morning with his baby.
 
Alec eagerly took Ivy and hugged her, taking her away so Dark could hear more easily.

"The short answer is that I took delivery of far more boxes than expected, and now I am struggling to move about the shop," Tristan said bluntly. "I could use some help moving them, but I also understand you have other commitments. If you cannot come, I will make do."
 
Dark stood silently for a few moments, looking at his children, torn between his nigh overwhelming desire to tell Tristan to manage on his own so he could stay home with them--why did Ivy need to look at him like that?--and the knowledge Daizi would want him to go help who she deemed was family. The man couldn't successfully navigate his buisness.

"It is no problem," He said at last, although he did sound a bit resigned, "I will be there soon. I just need to finish getting my daughter ready for the morning."
 
"Thank you. I appreciate your help," Tristan said, sounding a little short, but he was currently sitting among what felt like a literal sea of boxes, so it could not be helped. "Knock at the back door and I will let you in. I will see you soon."

Alec looked at Dark questioningly as he let Ivy chew part of his hair.
 
"It is no problem." Dark replied, hanging up. Then he sighed, roughly ran his hands over his face and said, "Tristan needs help, there was a problem with the deliveries, there are too many boxes and he can hardly move around the shop, so he asked if I could go in early." That seemed sufficient, but he took Ivy back and hugged her, "Hummingbird, Baba has to go to the flowers early today, okay? I know, he is very sorry. Yes, he is." He kissed the top of her head, and told Alec, "It has been nice to be out of the home, but I do not regret being a stay-at-home father."
 
Alec smiled. "I'll keep you in mind as my fill-in if I get sick just so you can have some time outside and remember how lovely home is," he teased. "I promise to take good care of them!"
 
"I know you will." Dark replied, kissing Ivy's hair, "I am going to get her dressed, I already left a note to Daizi I will likely be gone before she wakes up, which I do not enjoy, because she made it home so late last night." He tickled Ivy beneath her chin, "What does Baba have to do to get you to visit, huh? Mama visited yesterday, when is Miss Ivy-Qadira going to visit?"

Ivy cooed at him, so he pretended like she had answered, and then thanked Alec again for watching her before going upstairs to make sure she was dry and in fresh clothes to make work easier on Alec. Then he got dressed, adjusted the covers on Daizi, and went to work, aching at how Ivy screamed when he left.
 
Ivy grabbed lightly at her mouth, doing her absolute best to not be scared. But it was really scary. Especially because her morning had already been different! It was a very mean door, she hated when it shut. Although she didn't scream as much as she sometimes did, Ivy still held as tightly as she could to Alec, needing her time to express her many worries as best as she could.

~~

When Dark arrived at the shop, he knocked on the backdoor as told, waiting for Tristan to let him in.
 
"There we go, that's not so bad!" Alec soothed her. He carried her to the couch and sat down with her, snuggling her close and singing softly to her, hoping to ease her worries.

~~

It took Tristan a bit longer than normal to open the door. When he did, he had a phone to his ear and a laptop on his lap. He opened the door and gave Dark a quick look of gratitude and waved him in as he wheeled himself back into the shop. "Yes, I took possession of the flowers. I signed that I was taking possession of them before I realized that he was dropping off half the truck!"

The back room of the shop was filled with plastic shipping boxes, all of them with the heads of happy flowers sticking out. A few were things like roses, lilacs, lavender, and other assorted flowers, but the vast majority were daisies. Daisies in all colors of the rainbow! There was a path from the back door to the sorting and designing tables in the center of the room with boxes under and on top of one of the tables, and a messy path to cold storage. The rest was full wall to wall with boxes. Tristan used his long fetching stick to shove a box out of his way so he could reach the table more easily. His jacket and hat lay on top of the table as he sat in only his roll-up shirt sleeves.

"What I don't understand is why no one in your department felt the need to contact me when they saw the number!" Tristan was continuing on the phone, his tone tight with frustration, but he was fighting to remain civil. "Twenty dozen roses, twenty dozen tulips, ten dozen cosmos, ten dozen dianthus... two hundred dozen daisies?? That did not stand out to anyone as a potential mistake?" He had one hand on his chair wheel, pushing himself lightly back and forth in an almost rocking motion as he looked at the screen of his laptop. "I have the order form right here in front of me, and according to my order form, I ordered twenty dozen. Not two-hundred. I would appreciate if my bill... Please do not transfer me again. Thank you. Yes." He reached up to rub his forehead. "Yes, I understand. You cannot come pick them up? Are you certain?" A long pause as he listened. "Very well. I am still not happy, but I will take it. Thank you for working with me. Yes, you as well. Thank you."

He hung up the phone and closed the laptop. Then, with great deliberation, he set the laptop on the table and the phone next to it. Turning his chair, he headed for the cold storage room, using his stick to shove away a box so he could open the door. "I need a minute," he told Dark and let himself into the small room. He sat there completely still for a full two minutes.

When he emerged, he gave Dark a brittle smile. "Thank you for coming. It appears we are having a spontaneous daisy sale."
 
Ivy sniffled, digging her short little nails into the back of her brother's neck from how she gripped him, but eventually allowed herself to be soothed.
~~

Dark stepped in, looked around at everything, and immediately began to take off his suit jacket and tie. This was going to be serious work, and not work he needed to be well dressed for. He nearly offered to take the phone from Tristan, trusting his ability to be firm and intimidating, but the phone call ended too quickly. He nodded silently when Tristan said he needed a minute and when he came out, Dark's only question was, "Where do you want me to get started?" as he removed his cufflinks.
 
Tristan looked around, feeling a little lost for just a moment. Then he shook it off and focused. "First, I need to be able to move a little more easily. Could you please make a pathway to the front of the store for me? After that, it should clear out as we sort them. I am going to catalogue how many of which color we received, and some of these are going to have to go into cold storage if they are going to have any chance of being sold before they perish. I will figure out the ratio of what goes where as I catalog." He retrieved his stick from the floor and wheeled back to the table to open his laptop. "Anything that is not a daisy, it goes over here on this table next to me. Anything that is a daisy... goes wherever you can fit it."
 
"Right." Dark nodded, standing overlooking things with his hands on his hips, running over mental calculations. Inhaling slightly, he looked at Tristan, "Would you be uncomfortable if I dressed down to my undershirt? I do not want to stain this."
 
"That is perfectly fine." Tristan glanced at his phone for the time. "The store is not scheduled to open for another half hour, so it should not be an issue." He scanned over the order form. "According to my original order, the colors should be an even mix. If that remained true, that will make this a little easier." He glanced at Dark. "Do you have any artistic talents when it comes to the world of chalk art and words?"
 
Dark dropped his suspenders down to his sides and removed his shirt, laying it neatly along with the rest of what he had removed. Left only in his trousers and tank top, revealing to Tristan for the first time how his tattoos covered all of his arms and hinting how far across his torso they went.

But he just bent down and got to work, first working to clear a better path for Tristan. The boxes were heavier than he was expected, but nothing he couldn't lift easily, and he had the correct form for it, "I do not do a lot with chalk, but I could probably do something sufficient. I could also probably call Cooger if you need an extra hand moving things."
 
Tristan hesitated, glancing around. Then he sighed and shook his head. "I am afraid I don't have the funds to pay Cooger for the extra work. We will just have to do the best we can, I'm afraid." He turned back to his screen. "Once you've finished making a path and sorting out the non-disy flowers, could you make a sign? There's a sandwich board in the cleaning closet tucked in the corner. I give you free rein to do whatever sort of style or puns or anything else - as long as it is family-friendly - to indicate a massive daisy sale."

He turned from the table and moved to the nearest box of roses. He checked the roses over briefly, finding the expected five dozen, and looked around to spot the other three boxes of roses nowhere near where he was. Oh well. He turned and marked a few things on the computer before trying to find his stick. Once he found his stick, he used it to fish out a flat, square dolly. Dolly located, he was able to pull the rose box and two daisy boxes up onto it and pull them back to cold storage. He stayed in the cold storage for a bit, quickly rearranging everything he could easily reach to make room for as many flowers as possible. Then it was back out, counting boxes and checking the health of the flowers as he went before inputting more data into the computer and hauling more flowers back to cold storage. He was able to move surprisingly quickly once he had a decent pathway for his chair and the dolly.
 
"It is Cooger," Dark replied, lifting another box, "buy him a pizza. He often works on trades and IOUs because he owns the land his cabin is built on, is on well water, and uses solar panels for electricity, so he has an impressively low cost of living."

He brought the box to where it needed to be and went to move another, "I will do my best to think of something sufficient for the sandwich board."
 
"Unless Cooger has a wife, girlfriend, or boyfriend I am unaware of - which would not be a surprise by itself - I do not think I have anything I can trade him for that he'd need," Tristan replied. Cooger did not strike him as the type to want a bunch of cut flowers around his place for no reason. He paused and pulled his glasses out of a pocket so he could see the screen a little easier. Day to day he did not need them, but reading was much harder. If it hadn't been for the stress of the number of boxes, he would have pulled them out sooner.

It took him another ten minutes, but he finally had everything cataloged, including the number of colors of daisies. He also had most of the plants moved into cold storage that would fit. That still left a massive number of daisies. He sat back and looked at them for a minute. Then he used one of the paths Dark had created to reach his storage room and fetched out a box of vases. It took three trips, but soon he had every vase he owned out on the table. His left leg trembled slightly but nonstop as he worked.

"When you aren't busy, perhaps you'd care to assit me in some flower arranging?" he asked Dark with a slight smile. "I am thinking daisies only, throw a ribbon on, and maybe add in anything decorative you can find. A bit of glitter among the water beads, ribbons, tie on a bell or two, glue on a piece of decoration... I have a box of small items over there that I use for my terrarium builds. We can dig into that. You clearly have an excellent eye for color - especially judging by your body art - so you should do well with adding in just flowers with good colors."
 
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