How Green Becomes Wood

"I think that is just a normal book," Dark said, keeping his sleeves rolled up for the time being.

Charlie came closer to Dark, still a bit nervous around him, and looked at his arms closer, "They look like Halloween."
 
Charlie turned around to look at her dads, "Papa, I want like that!"

"Maybe when you're a grownup," Sean said apprehensively, getting up, "But I think it's probably time to get you and your brother ready for bed, okay? It's very late for both of you."
 
"Good night, Charlie! Night, Avery!" Alec called cheerfully.

Xander glanced at Matt but waited until the children were out of earshot before asking, "More than when you last saw him?"
 
"Yeah. Way more." Matt agreed, looking again at his ex-boyfriend, who was busy fixing his sleeves and redoing his cufflinks, "...How many more?"

"As many as I always said I wanted." Dark replied, adjusting Ivy, who was herself getting sleepy but was more than content to snuggle up against her Baba's chest.

"So you're just..." Matt waved one hand over his own torso.

"Yes."

"No!"

"Yes."

"So---" Matt waved one hand in disbelief, "You walk around, a forty-year-old man--"

Dark's eyebrows furrowed slightly, "I am thirty-nine."

"A thirty-nine-year-old man," Matt corrected himself dryly and then got back to his point, "Completely covered in tattoos, dressed like that, as a former-teacher, pushing around a toddler in a stroller."

"To be fair the stroller is also black. The canopy is shaped like bat wings."

"How did..." Matt stared at Dark, equally baffled and impressed, "What happened to you? I mean---how did you go from who you were to... being a father of three with a baby sleeping on you?"

"I could ask you a nearly identical question," Dark pointed out, unbothered by his shock, glancing around the room, "You are only missing a Live, Laugh, Love sign."
 
"I think I saw it on the the pantry door," Xander told Dark.

Alec glanced at Matt curiously. "He wasn't always a Gothic vampire? What was he like before he battified, then?"
 
"No, he was, I remember fighting to try to get him to wear something with a rainbow on it when we went to Pride, but, you know, he couldn't afford to commit to it like he can now, clearly. I guess I just thought it was..." Matt hesitated, searching for the right word.

"A phase?" Dark offered.

"...Performative?"

"Matthew, must you go for the heart every time?"

"I'm sorry I don't mean anything by it. When we were together you were just... so, so messy. So although your whole goth thing was very attractive I always figured it was like... I don't know. Armor, like you were just doing the whole bad boy thing as a shield or something."
 
Xander sat down near Daizi, careful to touch only what was absolutely necessary. "Just because it's armor doesn't mean it can't be cool or useful or look rad."

Alec smiled. "He supports in his own way. A rainbow is just a pretty little band of color compared to what he does to support... well, everything. Surely he supported in his own way back then?"
 
"Obviously," Matt replied to Xander, "and I never said differently. I just presumed if he reached a place where he was..." He hesitated to find the word, looking again at Dark, who had set his jaw but Matt couldn't read his expressions anymore. "More mature and steady, he wouldn't need it anymore. I figured he'd still wear black but the total commitment means it's just... who he is. I didn't know he'd keep it."

Dark looked down at Alec with a mild frown, "What do you mean support? I am bisexual, I am queer too. I do not go to 'show support' because the event is for me just as much as it is for Matt."
 
Alec's s.ile wilted, and he looked away. "That's not... never mind."

Xander's eyes narrowed as he glanced between the two. Then, abruptly, he turned to Matt. "So, while he was gloomy and vampiric, you had pink hair. And, what, rainbow colored everything you wore? Or were you into the black, too?"
 
Dark looked down at Alec, not understanding what he had said incorrectly but recognizing that he had. But this didn't seem like the environment to address what had happened, so he murmured an apology, confused as he was, because he had still somehow upset his son.

"I was definitely not walking around in rainbows then," Matt said, "It was 2011, gay marriage wasn't even legal yet. Things weren't as bad as they used to be but the world definitely wasn't as accepting as it is now. I had pink hair and I'd cuff my jeans and wear short-sleeved button ups open over undershirts. I definitely looked gay but I wasn't doing the whole rainbow suspenders thing. I already sound like this so I'd occasionally be hassled for it. I actually got to watch your dad knock a few people out when they wouldn't leave us alone."
 
The twins froze. For an instant, they remembered the incident with Dark and their mother's former boyfriend. For an instant, they remembered what it was like to watch Dark knock someone out. Then they shook free as if it never happened.

"It must have been nice to have someone who could defend you," Alec said brightly. "It's good to have people at your back!"
 
Dark looked down at Ivy and pretended like he was just checking on her and attending to her needs to disguise the place he went to at that statement.

"It had its perks," Matt replied, "There's things online sometimes called 'scary dog privileges' where someone who is more carefree is being followed by someone much more intimidating behind them. I suppose I had that then, although I'm glad to not need it now."
 
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Matt made a face, "I don't think I'm beige, but... I suppose I just grew up. It was hard to get a job with unnaturally hair, so I stopped dying it so I could look more professional. I'll still sometimes wear something similar to how I used to, but I'm not 20 anymore."
 
The twins nodded and glanced briefly toward their parents who were both still very... aesthetic. Neither could imagine them being anything else, it simply wouldn't suit, but Daizi, especially, still often dressed like she was twenty. They wondered if that would ever change. As teenagers, they looked at their parents as being much older than they actually were (something both twins would inevitably cringe at when they were in their thirties and forties), and while they truly could not imagine Dark or Daizi not being vampiric or witchy, repsectably, they wondered how their styles would mature.

And then they wondered how they would mature. Both had sudden, horrifying images of being beige themselves. With that thought, both decided that their entire family could dress as if they were twenty all their lives, no problem at all!
 
"I'm fortunate my job basically just lets me dress however I want," Daizi said, finally getting up off the floor, "I occasionally have meetings where I'm required to dress in 'real' buisness attire but the rest of the time the only rule I'm given is I can't have any midriff showing but that's not a difficult rule to keep to because the office is always freezing. Although I've been working remotely since Ivy was born."

"Really?" Matt asked, "Do you intend to go back?"

"Yes, but not until after she's not nursing during the day."

Matt looked at her surprised, "So, you're still...?"

"Yep."

"I'm sorry, that is very beautiful and completely natural," Matt said, "but it is just so strange to me."
 
"I'm sure it is," Matt said, a bit embarrassed by how weird he found it. "I'm sorry."

"No it's okay."

"I don't usually put my foot into my mouth this often."

"I've been told I'm very intimidating." Daizi grinned crookedly.

He sighed in relief, glad that she wasn't annoyed, "I can see why he likes you so much."

"Somebody has to keep him in check," She teased, nudging her husband with her shoulder.

"You know, Dark, as annoying as it was to hear you talk about her all the time when we were together, I am glad that you worked it out and you're doing so well now." Matt said, looking over at Dark again, "I mean, when we broke up..."

Dark inhaled, having expected at some point it'd come up, "I know. We do not have to."
 
Alec looked between the two. "I feel like there's an entire herd of elephants in that statement."

"How did you two break up, and how did you make it to nearly a year with one of you always banging on about some girl?" Xander asked directly.
 
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