How Green Becomes Wood

"It is more interesting than if she had done so during a changing," Dark admitted, putting the ice pack back on his face, "but it is not exactly my most storied and impressive wound."
 
"My machinations seldomly fail me," Dark replied.

At home, Milo was stressing and dwelling about what he was going to say to Becky the next day, despite promising Xander he'd try not to. And to be fair, he did genuinely try not to. But the unfortunate truth was, as much as he wanted to argue against it, he did recognize this was something he needed to speak up about. Xander was right about that, so trying to prepare himself for it without dwelling on it was a Herculean feat for his anxious mind, and it wasn't like his grandparents were any help. His granddad just said, "Well maybe just give her a chance!" and his grandmother called it romantic.
 
The rest of the evening went by well for the twins. They did not have any Herculean feats to worry about, so they were able to relax once Ivy had calmed down and was feeling better. Alec played with Kiki and practiced tricks with her. She was quite a clever kitty. Smart enough to know how to do the tricks, smart enough to know she didn't have to do the tricks, but greedy enough to be able to bribe her into doing the tricks. Xander left them to it, although he did watch a few of the tricks, and eventually wandered upstairs to play a little guitar. It was not something he did often, and he nearly always preferred privacy when playing on a whim. If asked and he had time to prepare, he did not mind playing with others, but not when he wanted to practice or just mess about.

The next day, both twins marveled at Dark's eye for a while before getting ready for school and heading out. Both of them took a moment to tell Ivy to be careful when standing up. Then they were out and off to school.

Becky wasn't there yet when they arrived, but they were a little bit early. It was nice to have the halls mostly to themselves to sort out their lockers and figure out what was what for the day.
 
"Do what?" Alec asked worriedly. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Xander patted Alec's shoulder. "Give us a minute, okay? I got this."

Alec gave Milo a concerned look but nodded and walked away.

Xander turned to Milo. "Freaking out about talking to Becky?"
 
"It's something you aren't used to. It's new. It makes sense to be hard," Xander said, stepping over to lean against a wall out of the way. "Alright. How about if you come up with at least a starting plan? Conversations never go the way you think they are going to, but it doesn't hurt to have a starting block. I'm Becky. What do you say to me?"
 
Milo looked at Xander, then across at everything in the room, and with a frustrated shrug said, "Stop giving me candy to try and get me to like you, it won't work." After a moment he pushed his hands back through his hair, "But that sounds awful."
 
"Yeah, not great," Xander winced. "Let's work with it. How about you start with a question? Like, 'Why do you keep giving me candy? Is it so I'll like you?' How does that sound?"
 
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