How Green Becomes Wood

"Not much of an athlete?" Dark teased, shaking off the heavy mood from earlier, "If there were other people working out with me I would not mind you watching, but with just the two of us, I think it would feel a bit like an exhibit."

He rose to his feet, planning to get his waterbottle, "I also do not know if you would enjoy how sweaty it gets down there, either."
 
"No, I think I save my athletism for dance," Alec laughed. He started up the stairs and called back, "Be sure not to hurt yourself! And enjoy being muscular and healthy! I have teenage things to do where I take my much younger body for granted and waste my peak years by sitting on my bed."
 
"It will be gone before you realize it," Dark sighed, shaking his head as he went downstairs, water bottle in hand. It felt strange to do it that time of day, but there was nothing for it, and he felt better after. He always did.

Then, after taking a long shower and finally dressing himself in his normal clothes, he sat down to call Daizi and tell her about what happened--leaving out, of course, what Alec had said. Mostly she was just sorry she couldn't be there, but the fact the outcome was not having to worry about CPS coming to take any of her three kids meant she was ultimately glad it happened. The conversation had been so brief there wasn't much they could say to each other reflecting on it--at least, not without what Alec had shared being mentioned.
 
By the time Dark had finished his exercise, showered, and talked with Daizi, Xander had finished walking and running Enkidu. He waited for Dark to finish showering, took his turn, and then went to the bedroom. He and Alec did not mention the CPS conversation. Instead, they worked a little more on their Project, fine-tuning things, and when they heard Dark's voice quiet after talking with Daizi, they started discussing which wall to put their abstract rainbow on. They still couldn't decide.
 
After showering, Dark went out to his shed to keep working. Out there, he reflected heavily on how far he must have come, that Daizi trusted him out alone in a shed with so many sharp implements. Unlike the twins, he couldn't fully shake the CPS conversation from his mind.

After a few hours of working, when it was about lunch time again, he got up and went to the twins door, knocking politely, because he and Daizi never just walked in.
 
Alec opened the door. "Just in time! A voice of reason. Tell him he's in error! That it simply will not work!" he demanded, pointing to Xander.

Xander, sitting cross-legged on his bed and leaning against the snake, made a face at the pillow. "I'm not wrong, and he'll prove it. You've completely lost your senses to think he'll side with you."

Alec sniffed and drew himself up, quivering indignantly. "At least I had senses to lose! Unlike some people in this room."
 
Dark blinked, surprised at the apparently heated debate going on behind closed doors, "What are we arguing about? What will not work?"

That was one thing he could say about this house now, he supposed. It was never boring... although Dark did not particularly mind boring. He had seen too much, a simple, boring life had been more than enough for him... Just something he was not fated to recieve.
 
Alec pointed toward the back wall with a window. "I say the rainbow should go on that wall and stretch around because that way it will be halfway between both of our sides of the room!"

"And I say the window will break up the rainbow and distract, so it should start on that wall," Xander said, pointing to Alec's side.

"But then it's supposed to fade halfway across the ceiling, meaning you don't get any rainbow!" Alec protested.
 
"Okay..." Dark nodded, trying to size up the situation as best he could. He cast his gaze around the room arms crossed, "Xander is right, it would break up the rainbow to do it over the window... but if you do it on Alec's side, you are right about that, too," He nodded to Alec, and went silent. Thinking.

At last he pointed to the corner near the door, "What if you start it there? Have the origin point in the corner, and spread up and out over the ceiling, it would spread a little over Alec's wall, but also over your door, so it makes the entry way part of it? Or we could get white curtains for your window and use fabric paint to blend in with the design."
 
Both twins fell silent, looking at the corner near the door. Then at the window. Then the door. Then the window.

"You know," Alec said slowly, "I really do like the idea of doing it in the corner."

"Me too," Xander admitted.

Alec looked at him. "So, have we found a compromise?"

Xander rubbed his chin as he considered. Then nodded. "Yeah, let's do it."

Alec smiled at Dark. "Thank you."
 
"What else am I for?" Dark asked, looking around the room again. He didn't sit, because even though it was his house, it was their room, and he didn't want to impose, "So now I suppose all that remains is finding the paints and prepping the room. Now that is exciting... What colours were you thinking?"
 
"An entire rainbow of colors!" Alec declared, waving his arm to indicate the walls. "But in more muted, pastel shades, not neon. Definitely not neon. We'd never sleep. Anyway, I want pastel colors, I think, or at least calmer colors, and for one to gently blend into the other all the way over."

"Think a melted bag of Skittles," Xander said.

Alec paused and nodded. "Yes, something like that."

Xander glanced at Dark. "Did you need something? I bet you didn't come to our door to ask about colors."
 
A pastel rainbow... He looked up and down the wall, envisioning it. It wasn't what he had ever envisioned adorning his walls, but it was what would be there now. But it seemed rainbows had begun to follow him, deeply strange as it was. If only he had a cowl or a shroud to wrap himself in to maintain the midnight aura he felt most comfortable in.

But he couldn't deny it could be nice, seeing the colours spreading over the wall. And it wasn't his space to decorate.

Turning back to the twins, "I just wanted to ask what you wanted for lunch."
 
"Is it lunchtime? Sweet! I'll take a chicken," Xander said, surging up from the bed.

"A chicken? You mean a chicken sandwich?" Alec asked, following him.

"No, like a whole chicken. Maybe roasted, or fried, or broiled!" Xander grinned, charging down the stairs ahead of Dark and Alec.

"I don't care how hungry you are, you cannot eat a whole chicken!" Alec protested, following him. "We don't even have a whole chicken, and if we did, I claim half of it for me!"

"You can get your own chicken!"
 
"You cannot have an entire chicken," Dark replied, "and all meals do not need to be extravagant." With them being 15, he assumed they were old enough to make their own lunches, like they did for school, but since he was home and eating anyway, it wasn't really a hassle. And he needed to be certain one of them was eating, anyway.

"You can have a chicken sandwich if you like," He said, "Or something else, but unless you want to walk to Cooger's with an axe, that is the most I can do for you." As he said his, he began taking out the pita bread for his usual lunch of khubaz with a salad.
 
"What are you eating?" Xander asked curiously while Alec started investigating his options.

Sandwiches were the one thing Alec could be trusted to make - at least, simple ones - and he took great pride in that. He picked out everything he needed, waiting patiently for Dark to move rather than reaching around him when their paths crossed. A chicken sandwich did sound good, so that was what he started building. One for himself, two for Xander. He did wonder if his appetite would ever match Xander's, and he hoped not. They might actually clear out Dark and Daizi's kitchen if they both ate like bottomless pits.
 
"What I almost always eat," Dark replied, "pita bread with butter and jelly, and some of that big salad I make. You can have some, if you like, it has beets, chickpeas, cucumbers..." He trailed off, not feeling a strong urge to list numerous ingredients.

It sounded like a light meal, but he ate a lot of the salad at a time, because he needed to in order to just exist at the size he was. Even before he bulked up, it was just necessary. Although Xander, at this new teenage growth spurt seemed to be catching up in plate size, but he was active enough, "Are you both doing well? Settled down? I know earlier today was... a lot, for all of us."
 
"I dunno how you can eat the exact same thing every single day," Xander said. He paused and then shrugged. "Is it too much trouble to make me one?"

"I made you a sandwich already," Alec said, waving his butterknife over the three in question.

"And I'll eat those too," Xander promised without hesitation.

Alec grumbled but plated up their lunches and went in search of drinks. "Still a little shaky, I suppose, but it's nice to know that it's all over and we don't have to worry about it ever again. It's kind of a relief."
 
"I switch it up sometimes," Dark replied, getting more pita bread out for Xander, "this is more or less like toast with jam, so you will find it perfectly inoffensive. But I think consistency is good for me. I was food insecure growing up-- which I believe you already know?--and even though it has been many years since those days, it is still good to not have to wonder what I am going to be, because I always know it is there."

After buttering the pita and spreading both apple and pear jelly over it (it was Dark's personal preference), he passed it to Xander, "Let your brother try a bit of it," he assumed Alec wouldn't be hungry enough for a full one of his own, but it was still good, he thought, to let him know it was an option, "and I agree, it is a relief. He said unless people report us, we will not have to worry about CPS bothering us about the baby, either. So we are, more or less, free of being pestered. Although our social worker is supposed to check in, I need to make a call, I guess they are supposed to visit every six months, which has not happened."
 
"Cool," Xander said, copying Dark as he put it together. "I guess we were kind of insecure food-wise, but not as bad as you. We didn't get hit as hard." He offered Alec a bite.

Alec looked at it suspiciously but accepted the bite. "Huh, that's not bad," he agreed. He held up his sandwich. "I prefer this, but yours is very good. We always had sandwiches. Sometimes they were made out of the weirdest stuff."

"How likely are people to report you guys?" Xander asked Dark and started stuffing his face with the khubaz before he'd even sat down.
 
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