Dark had his hand on Daizi's back, but she was non-responsive to it, "At the top?" He repeated, unsure of exactly how far back to begin. But he asked for the top, so he began all the way back with when he was only their teacher, before even their mother died, and explained how the teachers all had concerns about the twins, and how the concerns only increased after Tara died. Then he explained how he had found them alone in the snow, freezing, "they were only, I want to say, about this tall, then," he held his hand more or less at the height they were, "and starving. Xander, the one out there, was angry, Alec, the--" he faltered, and had to stop for a moment before continuing to explain how the twins ended up living with them into the new year because of the snow, and how then, in order to prevent them from running away, they had agreed to foster them, "because we did not want anything to happen to them."
"It was surprisingly easy at first, but then..." He looked over at Daizi, still entirely in the throws of her panic attack, and briefly thought about skipping beyond certain details, but decided it was stupid to, "my wife became pregnant--unplanned--it took them both a little while to adjust to it. But we worked with them, and got them to a place they were comfortable with it. And this whole time, mind you, we had been urging them to attend therapy, but they were not comfortable with that idea."
He then explained how, roughly a month ago, their biological father and aunt showed back up in their lives, for the first time since conception, and they had been having meetings with him. Xander, Dark explained, took to the man, but Alec did not, "and Declan, their father, their biological father, he encouraged this separation. He really put all of his attention on Xander, nearly exclusively suggesting activities Xander would enjoy, but Alec would not, and I tried to convince him to be more open to his other son, but he swore there was not a difference. So we began to give extra attention to Alec, because we did not want him to seem less worthy of affection than his brother, which I fear only increased the divide we have been experiencing," He exhaled, "and Alec is extremely co-dependent with Xander, and it was something we had been trying to work on, but it was difficult because Alec is a people-pleaser, and Xander is extremely protective, so it was difficult to. And we noticed, we knew, the stress of it was literally eating away at Alec, like Daizi said, we had been trying to help him, we found therapists, but this past week everything became much worse, because Declan and Xander had been spending much more time together, and Alec had sworn off seeing Declan at all. Then, this morning, Xander and I got into an argument, just one of those really classic stupid arguments you get into with teenagers--I am a high school teacher, I already said that, I have had so many--so I stayed calm, and when I was giving them space to cool off, Xander attempted to leave, but changed his mind after learning that man who created them was abandoning them for a second time, without planning to say goodbye, and I think it was just..." His voice broke again, "I thought Alec was struggling with depression. Changes in appetite, he was tired all the time, he did not enjoy art as much as he used to, and I had convinced him to give therapy a shot, we were getting him help, we were in the process of getting him help."
