How Green Becomes Wood

"I am saying," Dark said carefully, "You were dealing with inordinate turmoil your Freshman year, and the first half of your sophomore year was unexpected," Ivy squeaked and Dark thanked her for admitting her role in the chaos, "and it has ended less than smoothly. But I know you are clever and intelligent, and I look forward to your academic progress as we, hopefully, enter a less tumultuous academic year."
 
Alec listened very carefully and nodded slowly as Dark finished. "Indeed. So you are saying that we are slacking in the absolute nicest way possible. I understand." He looked serious, but there was a tiny twinkle in his eye.
 
Dark stood Ivy in his lap, looking at her face for a moment before looking at Alec, "If I felt you were slacking I would have intervened sooner. I am only saying there is room for improvement, but that is true for all people."
 
Alec giggled and shook his head before pushing himself up to his feet. "You are so nice to literally everyone but yourself. Don't worry, I know what you mean, and I promise to do better on my studies next year. Even if there are surprises."
 
"I do not like waking up early," Dark answered, squinting at Ivy, "but someone else likes to. And Daizi cannot drive herself to work, so I am used to waking up early to drive her to the train station. I would much prefer to sleep in until eleven and not go to bed until two in the morning or so. But, as that is not an option, waking up when I do does typically give me time to exercise before work."
 
"Two to eleven sounds like a balanced sleep schedule, I suppose," Alec mused, "but what about the circular rhythm we're taught about? The one that means you should sleep and rise with the sun." He meant circadian rhythm.
 
"Tell owls about the sun." Dark replied sardonically, taking a sip of coffee.

"It's natural for there to be morning and night people," Daizi told Alec, "because it meant there were always some people who were able to keep watch over the group. Dark's just a night person in a world built for morning people." She rubbed Dark's shoulder, sitting down beside him.
 
"Let's see, there's the snowy owl, the burrowing owl, the northern hawk owl, the northern pygmy owl... Oh! And the burrowing owl!" Alec said cheerfully, counting them off on his fingers. "They know about the sun. I suppose they're for the night owls?"

"What about owls?" Xander asked, coming in to join them.

"Some are night, some are day, and some are di," Alec told him.

"Oh. The light has dawned," Xander said dryly.
 
It was too early in the morning and he was too depressed to be owlsplained. Dark sipped his coffee and was content to know he was none of those types of owls.

"You know what he meant," Daizi teased in his place, "I'm sorry Ivy woke you. We couldn't decide if we should have woken you up last night or not."
 
"That's alright. It wasn't too bad," Alec assured her. "It was disorienting, but not bad. Thank you for the blankets."

Xander shook his head at his cheery brother and focused on eating his breakfast. It was too early for this. It always was, yet that never seemed to stop him.
 
"I know it helped Ivy a lot to be able to be with her brothers rather than a stranger," Daizi said, scooping up her baby, "Did you like staying home with Alec and Xander, Hummingbird? I hope you did not cause them too much trouble!" She boopped Ivy on the nose, but then seriously asked, "Was she okay?"
 
"Absolutely perfect," Alec assured her. "We all snuggled on the couch until she fell asleep, and then we put her to bed. It wasn't even the least, little bit hard. Except the floor. The floor was hard, but that's our own fault."
 
Daizi sighed from relief, "Good. Good, I hated leaving her. I knew I had to, but it was hard." She pressed her face into her daughter's hair and breathed deeply, certain she had made the right choice but still feeling poorly about it.

"I am glad you went with me," Dark confessed quietly, looking at his bandaged hand. "I needed you with me." He took a deep breath and winced because his rib wasn't healed, and then looked at the twins, "I am sorry for scaring you."
 
"It's alright. Accidents happen," Alec assured him. "I'm sorry I kind of overreacted. Everything turned out fine, and it's all okay now."

Xander grunted before mumbling, "I cleaned off your knife. Maybe you should give up on the puzzle box."
 
"Thank you," Dark said, not remembering the few strange moments he had prior to realizing what he had done. "The puzzle box is not the problem. I was shaving down the mechanism and my hand slipped. It could have happened making anything."
 
Xander grunted and finished off his breakfast. He cleared his area and then said, "I'm going out for a walk. Enkidu, do you want to come with? Want to go on a walk?"

"Bye," Alec called, standing to help clean up the breakfast dishes.
 
Enkidu heard the w-word and scrambled to his feet, happily hurrying off to the door to sit and wait. Or, try to sit. He kept bouncing up from excitement before forcing himself back down.

"Tonight we're going to give Ivy solid foods for the first time," Daizi said, trying to keep the mood light, because she could feel a weird energy in the house, and she wanted to fix it.
 
"What are you going to try first?" Alec asked, willingly following Daizi's lead.

"Good boy, Enkidu," Xander told him and put on his collar and leash. They headed out for a walk. Xander warmed them both up and then started running. He needed to move! To work out physically what was getting him all wrapped up mentally. He was angry! Angry at what? Dark. He was angry with Dark. Why? He felt like Dark was hiding something. Was he? Or was it Xander making stuff up in his own paranoia? It might be that. Yet, he was certain Dark wasn't telling them everything. Like his rib. Xander had been watching him, and Dark was good, very good, but sometimes he'd have tiny reactions to indicate he'd done something to hurt his side. Bruised ribs hurt, but not to that degree, and Xander knew it had to be bad to make it through Dark's masks. Why would he lie about an injury? To make them feel better? They weren't little children. They could handle things like that. Yes, Xander did feel a squirm of guilt that Dark was hurt because of something that happened because of them, but he blamed Dax more than he blamed himself. Dax was to blame for all of this, he was sure of it. Except... why was Dark acting so weird? It was kind of like watching Alec when he was determined to pretend like everything was okay, except different and worse. He thought back to the blood on the table. What did it mean? Was he overthinking it? Was he truly paranoid now? Was he expecting too much? Dark was the adult, after all, and he had a right to his secrets, but this last accident didn't sit right with Xander. He couldn't shake the thought that maybe it hadn't been an accident. But it had to have been! Right?

Finally, he stopped running, slick with sweat and panting. "Enkidu," he rasped to the dog, "I think I'm driving myself crazy."
 
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