How Green Becomes Wood

"very clever." Dark said blandly, rinsing his sponge, knowing but refusing to look at how dredged in flour he was, "You should know, anytime I do find a grey hair, I look at it and think so fondly about you and your siblings. The memories, the fun we had, oh, how we laughed."

"They come in in the hair more or less above his left eyebrow," Daizi giggled, gesturing to her own hairline, about where they find Dark's, "Only there."
 
"At least I will have hair to look back on," Dark set the sponge down and rubbing his hands over his face, cringing at the way the way he saw the fine powder fall. Unfortunately for him, although he was aware of the flour on his face, and on the front of his clothes, he was entirely unaware of the smeared handprints on his back.

"The bread smells really nice though," Daizi said carefully, fighting to stop from laughing again.
 
"We did successfully make the loaves, at least I think successfully, we'll see when we try them, but all of the flour that's elsewhere should probably be thrown away."

Dark kept wiping the counters, which were slowly coming clean, "At least it looks like we will be finished before the bread is done."
 
Xander chased down a bit more flour until he realized he was following Dark and Daizi around as they shed flour. "I think you two should probably go clean your personal selves," he snickered. "I can finish up here."
 
"You're probably right," Daizi agreed, amused, but Dark looked down at himself in horror.

"We are going to end up tracking flour through the entire house," Dark complained.

"Well put a bag on your head."

"I... I think I am going to take my shirt off here, and put it in a plastic bag, and that will... mitigate some of the problems." There was nothing to be done about the flour Daizi would shed as they went upstairs, it wasn't like she could partially undress in the kitchen, not with the boys home.
 
Xander glanced between them in amusement and set aside the broom. He checked himself over. Other than a slight smudge on his arm, he was clean. "How about we three youngsters head into our room and stay there until you two have reached your room in whatever state of undress you choose?" he suggested. "Just knock on our door when you go past, we'll count to ten, and then come out to finish cleaning."
 
"It might be for the best," Dark agreed, shutting the curtains, while Daizi tried not to laugh at how serious they took everything.

"Or just go upstairs and grab one of my robes, I'm sure if I put it on over what I'm wearing, things will be fine."
 
"Yeah, alright, I'll go grab a robe," Xander agreed. He headed out and went upstairs to find Daizi's robe. He retrieved two robes without looking too closely other than to see if they'd fit and then went back downstairs. "Here you go. Two flour containers."
 
While Xander was upstairs, Dark still stripped down to his undershirt and carefully placed it into a plastic bag. He still put his robe on, thanked Xander for it, and then hurried upstairs to clean himself up before causing more mess.

Daizi just laughed as she put the robe on, "You should've heard how he swore when it happened, even he couldn't help but laugh."
 
Xander snickered as he glanced around the mostly clean kitchen. "I can imagine. You two looked as if you'd aged a couple of decades while we were at school. Impressive feat." He picked up a cloth and started hunting down missed splotches. "I'll get the rest of it, don't worry, and I'll take the bread out when it's done. It had better be amazing after all this!"
 
"It should be coming out fairly soon, but then it needs to sit in the oven for five minutes with it off before we take it out," Daizi explained, before hurrying upstairs to get the flour out of her hair. Dark was already struggling getting it out of his beard--adding too much water caused it to clump up, which gooped his beard.

"I am going to shave it off," He grumbled, carefully trying to comb it out.

"Don't do that, you'll just regret it," Daizi replied, undressing immediately after shutting the door to their bedroom, to avoid tracking flour into their sacred space, "It cannot possibly be that bad."

"It is that bad."

"Let me help you," She told him, coming into the bathroom and carefully set about picking the clumps from his beard, combing it out and scrubbing his face with his special beard shampoo.

Not able to sit there and do nothing, while she worked on him, he did his best to comb the flour from her hair until they both showered the rest off, put on new clothes, and went downstairs to enjoy the freshly baked bread.

If nothing else, it looked and smelled lovely. One loaf was standard, and the other had chocolate in.
 
Xander turned off the oven when the timer went off and left the bread in the oven as asked. Alec came in with Ivy, and they helped Xander track down the last few stray bits of flour. By the time their parents came back, the kitchen was shiny and clean. They greeted their parents and watched the bread curiously, leaving the cutting to the people who'd made it and worked so hard for. They were in reasonably good spirits, but quiet and reserved.
 
The bread needed to cool for just a little while, but when it was ready, Dark cut one loaf and Daizi cut the other. It looked okay, inside, and while he got the jam out, Daizi called the twins in so they could all try it together.
 
"Then, Ba, you make good bread," Xander told him. "You look much younger now, too."

Alec snorted. "You clean up very nice, both of you. I like the chocolate one."

"I like the regular better, but both are good," Xander said, pulling off a piece.
 
"It did turn out fairly well," Dark agreed, "it is nearly worth it."

"I think it was very worth it," Daizi grinned as Ivy squeaked at them, watching as they ate the bread. Her mother only shook her head, "No baby, I'm sorry. You can't have this, yet, you don't get sugar until your birthday."
 
"You'll have to teach me how to do this," Xander commented, fetching another piece and slathering a small amount of jam on his bread.

Alec nodded. "Yes, please! Then we can have tasty things like this more often."
 
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