How Green Becomes Wood

Following a peaceful late afternoon, and the most relaxed dinner they had experienced since the whole mess happened last week, Dark and Daizi worked on winding Ivy down for the night and then soothed her to sleep for the night. And then, kept their distance from each other until they were certain the twins had also gone to sleep before easing out tension.

Come morning, Dark and Daizi were both quite pleased to see Alec rode with Xander to school and settled back in for another, normal day. At school, Milo was there like he always was, trying to convince himself it'd be a good week, this time. Eventually it needed to be a good week.
 
Alec smiled and waved to Milo, more reserved than before, but still friendly. Xander gave his usual nod. As they walked toward Milo, the three "usual suspects" of the football team were walking the other way. They were talking and not paying much attention, and one bumped roughly into Milo.

He turned and looked at Milo as Xander lengthened his stride to get there. "Sorry, man," the footballer mumbled, stepping away to give Milo more space. "Later." He and the other two kept walking without looking back.

Xander watched them in confusion before going to Milo. "All good?"
 
"Yep, it's weird," Xander confirmed.

"Weird, but a pleasant surprise," Alec said with a slight nod. "Onward with hopes of more weird but pleasant surprises!"

Xander rolled his eyes but let Alec lead the way to their first class.

Their classes went by without much to note. Alec and Xander both focused on their classes, and it went well. In history, the teacher called on a lot of students, including Alec, to answer questions or otherwise participate in the class, but she did not call on Milo or one of the girls in the class. She was watching them and making sure they were paying attention, but in no way did she call attention to them, allowing students like Alec who didn't mind the attention or could at least handle it take charge.

Lunch was quiet, and again the twins were, at best, neutral with each other. Xander finished early and slipped away to go sit with Milo in his hideaway for the last half of the lunch break. Then it was back to class. For their last class, the teacher broke them into pairs for a short project that was supposed to take the coming week to finish.
 
Milo kept his head down, but it did feel better today than last week. He was grateful the footballer apologized, and maybe it would be better. It's not like he didn't want it to be better.

Still, he preferred to eat under the bleachers, and when he expected to be alone but Xander showed up near the end, his face lit up with a genuine smile. He never expected anyone to think of him, even now. Although, back in the cafeteria, Sloan picked up on the remaining tension and did her best not to be a busybody about it.

In the last class, then, when Milo learned he would have an assigned partner, his heartbeat sped up rapidly, and suddenly he was facing Austin, the big football player who confused the hell out of Milo. He never know where he stood with him, and he murmured an awkward hello and couldn't think of anything else to say.
 
The teacher gave them time to talk to each other and sort out their projects.

"Hello," Austin greeted Milo, only a little less awkward. "Um. Do you... want to split the project in half? And we could... meetup, like... twice? Or just once on, like Thursday to make sure we got it all together?"

Alec walked across the room to meet his partner while Xander tried to figure out who he'd been stuck with.
 
"Yeah, my grades are the best, but I'm not failing, so... I guess you don't have to worry about that?" Austin attempted to encourage. He sat down carefully and opened a notebook. "Right. So. Um. I guess we list out what we need to do and... divide and conquer?"

Alec smiled as he approached Emma. "Hi! I hope you don't mind getting me for a partner."

"Not at all! But I am still waiting for that text," she grinned at him.

"Sorry, it's been hectic," Alec apologized. "A lot of stuff has been happening. But! I think I have the days narrowed down. First, I guess we should focus on our project."

Emma pulled her desk closer to the one next to her, and they huddled up to get down to work.
 
"Um. Sure, yeah," Milo replied, taking out his notebook, "and, um, I guess we could talk about it on Thursday, too. I never, um, have things to do. I can take pictures for the project, too."
 
"Cool, cool, I don't have a phone right now, so I don't really have anything for pictures," Austin said. He wrote out a list of things that needed to be done and then started putting initials next to who could do what. He asked Milo conscientiously what he wanted and if it was okay if Austin took certain things before putting down the initials for each and every item. Most of it was things they could do separately, but a couple of items they'd need to do together, as well as come together to put it into one, cohesive project.
 
As much as Milo hated group projects, it did make Milo feel better that Austin cared, and he wasn't just going to have to do the whole thing himself. And Austin wasn't being mean to him either. Maybe it'd actually be okay, this time.
 
Xander was having less luck with his partner as the well-groomed teen with his suave smile. He'd taken control the moment Xander approached him and was saying who would do what. Xander immediately noticed the guy had given himself the majority of easy, quick tasks, but he let it go. Everything about the guy irked Xander, but he was trying to make it work. He wasn't going to flunk this class just because he had bad luck of the draw with partners. As long as the guy turned in good work, he didn't really care if he took the "easy" jobs. It was stuff he didn't have to deal with.

"Alright, five minutes!" the teacher called.

"Are we good?" Austin asked Milo uncertainly as Alec and Emma giggled together.
 
Austin wrote down a number on a piece of paper and handed it to Milo. "I don't have a phone, but that's my family's phone. Call me if you need anything. Someone is always home and they'll get the message to me."

Alec came over to his desk and grinned at Milo. "This project is going to be fun!"
 
Alec smiled. That was possibly the most positive thing he'd heard Milo say about something school related. "Cool! I think so, too."

The bell rang, and a grumpy Xander came to join them.
 
Xander grunted in response as he made sure he had all his stuff. "I'll make it work." The guy had only taken one harder job, and Xander already had the sneaky suspicion that the guy would suddenly get ahold of him claiming he couldn't do it at the last minute. "How about yours?"
 
"I'm working with Emma, and she is a lot of fun!" Alec reported. "She's a fantastic researcher, too, so it was easy to divide up the work between us."

"Who's Emma?" Xander frowned as they walked out and headed out.

"She's come to a few of our gigs at the pizza parlor," Alec told him. To Milo, he said, "She seems really dedicated."
 
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