How Green Becomes Wood

"That is both of them, yes," Dark confirmed, pleased his work was recognized. Then he went into a drawer on his desk and handed it to Alec, "I made a new one. I thought you might like it better."

This depiction was of Alec, but he had remade it so he was in a Cyr Wheel, like Alec had dreamt about. Dark had added a bit more flair to the miniature Alec's clothing than before, and had mounted the base of the wheel in a way so that you could gently spin it with your finger. It couldn't roll--he couldn't figure out how to make it balance--but you could at least turn it, and it was weighted so that in the resting position, the miniature Alec was upside-down.
 
Alec gasped, and tears sprang to his eyes. He bit his lip, fighting down the sudden rush of feelings. It had been an exhausting day, and this gesture of love, affection, and, above all else, attention to his hopes and dreams nearly broke him. He took a few deep breaths and willed down the tears as he lightly turned the wheel around and around. "I look like I am going to have a serious head-such problem when I eventually stand upright again," he tried to joke, his voice wavering a little. He looked up at Dark with a genuine smile and held it out to him. "It's perfect. Beyond perfect."
 
He reached forward and tipped the wheel so Alec was head-up again, "There you go. If you hold it there, the blood can drain." Then he let go, and Miniature Alec turned upside down again, "I thought, if you want to work as something that could well be in the Carnival, I may as well let you be it now. You can place him wherever you like."

Ultimately, he knew he'd probably rearrange where Alec set the miniature down, because there were, admittedly, right and wrong options, but if he rearranged it after he left, it wouldn't matter. It was the gesture. And saying this, he picked up the old version. "I normally put these on my shelf, but you can have it, if you like. Cooger has one of his."
 
The tears tried to come again, and Alec blinked rapidly to force them back. Then, delicately as possible, he set his figure down on the corner of a tiny stage. "There. A nice, flat area for him to perform. I don't know how to deal with things like divots in the dirt yet," Alec said, nudging the tiny version of himself to a secure spot. Then he took the old version and smiled. "I would like to keep this. Thank you." He looked down at the carnival again. "You said... you said I'm in the carnival now. Really in it now."
 
"You've been in it," He said, nodding his head to the side, "All that has changed is how it looks... I suppose you could think of it as a promotion, but I do not. It is simply... a more accurate representation." Dark nodded towards one area of his shelving, where he had placed almost every depiction of Daizi, Cooger, and himself he had ever made. They wore different clothes, had different hair, there were weight fluctuations, Cooger's position had changed a few times. At one point, Dark's figure had hair that went below his shoulders and a red streak, and he had an increasing number of tattoos as the years went on. Daizi was at various points in pregnancy across various groupings. One was clearly very new, because she was nursing Ivy in it while, presumingly, reading a crystal ball, although the table and crystal weren't in front of her. The oldest ones were obvious, both because of how young they looked and the relative lack of skill compared to the newest. "It is all just another chapter in the story."
 
"It's a beautiful story," Alec said quietly. "I feel like I've been added in, like a chapter in a book, but... I've been resisting my stitching. Or glue, or whatever holds new papers in." He sat down on a stool, eyes on the figures, not saying anything for a moment. "It feels odd. To be this way. Part of and yet not part of."
 
"What do you mean?" Dark asked, sitting down on a different stool after moving it closer to Alec's and looking carefully at him. "Why do you think you are... resistant to being sewn in?'
 
Alec sighed, staring at the miniatures. "Well... I realized something today after talking to Aunt Ciara after the talent show and then talking to Milo today, I was so fixated on what I might lose, I stopped being able to see what I did have and, worse, what I could have. I was scared of losing family that I might possibly have. I thought... No, I hoped desperately that the only people who were my blood family were Aunt Ciara, as kind as she tries to be, and... you know. Him. But even if they are my only family, why can't I accept the non-blood family that's just waiting for me? With open arms? What is my hang-up on blood family? The only blood family that really cared about us - me - since childhood would be... Mum." He paused and swallowed. "She's dead. All blood links died with her. Even Aunt Ciara says that she wouldn't blame us for going to you as our family because she... lost all rights to that."
 
"I understand." Dark said, looking at his carnival. Then, in a grim voice, repeated himself, "Believe me, I understand." He looked at Alec, some lond-smouldering ember in his eyes threatening to ignite. "Ivy is my only blood-relative. I remember, when I was very young, probably only six years old, visiting a relative with my mother. My father was not there, but besides that, all I really remember is the smell of perfume. I did not see them again." He looked back at the carnival, "I do not know if they survived the war. I do not think they know I survived it, it they did. My home was rubble when I left. If my relatives came to it, I expect I'd be counted among the dead, so even if they all lived, they would not think to look for me. I did die that day, in some regards. And I asked myself, why do I care? What did they do? My memories of what my father did predate my last memory with those relatives, but they did not help me. Why yearn for them?"

Dark raised one hand and then let it fall back onto his lap with a soft thud. "But I do care. I look at Daizi with her family and Cooger with his. None of my family cared about me, I believe. Or did not care enough. But they are every part of everything which came before me. They knew the stories and recipes I was never taught, the sorts of things Daizi can spend hours talking about. He sighed, and looked back at Alec, although the ember hadn't cooled, "I have learned to accept the non-blood family I have. Entirely. And I would not trade you, or Xander, or Cooger. I could never trade Daizi. But I do wonder. And I still miss what I never really had: probably because I never had it." Again, he looked away, "Do you view, or want to view, Ciara as your family? Do you think she has lost all right?"
 
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Alec reached out and gently squeezed Dark's forearm before dropping his hand again. "I'm sorry I brought up sad memories for you," he said, his expression truly sorrowful. "I don't think you've ever mentioned that before. I just kind of assumed... Well, it doesn't matter what I assumed because it was wrong, and I'm sorry I never asked about it before. I guess I was afraid to." He looked down at the miniature in his hand. "At the same time, I'm glad that you understand. You probably understand better than I do. I mean, I'm not happy you went through such a tragedy. I'm sorry if I said it that way. I'm just... I feel like a part of this family, I do, I truly mean it when I call you both Mama and Baba. I think I am just being selfish and looking for more, or something different, and I don't even logically know why. It makes no sense."

He sighed and dragged his foot lightly across the floor. "I don't know if I feel like Aunt Ciara is family, and maybe that's part of why I keep looking. when she showed up, I felt like we could be one big, cozy family, but... we're not. Not really. She's trying, and I don't want her to stop trying, but I guess a part of me is kind of mad at her for not being there, no matter how logical her reasons were, and I'm still looking for what I expected her to be. That doesn't exist, and it's unfair to everyone. Especially to you and Mama."
 
Dark shook his head, "You do not need to be sorry. I do not even think sad is the correct word for it. Sad memories... It is too simple to capture it." He wanted to say that Alec didn't need to be afraid of asking him questions, and that Alec could ask him anything about himself, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. It would be a lie. Although there was much he wanted to share with them, there was much more he could not express to them. Details he had to keep private. They could not ask him anything.

Exhaling a shallow breath, Dark ran a hand through his hair and moved one foot to the crossbar of his stool, "I do not think it is selfish. How much of your life was spent believing it was yourself, Xander, and your mother, with nobody else to support you? How different might your life have been had relatives been there to help support you? What might you have avoided?" He looked down at his tattooed hands, tracing the outline of one of the roses with his thumb, "You will never know. That longing does not simply vanish." He touched his fingertip to his sternum, "It comes from here, deeper down than any scapple can reach. I do not think it is wrong for you to be mad at her, either. Would it serve you to work through those feelings and forgive? Probably so. But you are only sixteen. You are a child who had no say in any of it. Your mother made a choice, he made a choice, your grandparents, Ciara, all of them made a choice and stuck with it, regardless of what might have benefitted you or what you might have wanted." He focused his gaze steadily on Alec, "You are still a child. And Ciara is Daizi's age. Who can fault you for hoping?"
 
Alec stared down at the floor, still scuffing it lightly with his shoe as he thought. What Dark said impacted him deeply, and all he could do for a bit was mull it over. It felt a little anticlimactic, but sometimes you needed to just sit with the heavy things. Finally, he said, "I told Mama that I didn't want to be adopted by you. Mostly because I was afraid that in doing so, I would lose my last name and thus the potential of meeting any other family members that might randomly pop up. I was wrong. About a lot of things."
 
"I know you told her that." Dark said, still looking at him, "She told me." He did not mention how much hearing it had hurt him. Alec had already seen how it had harmed Daizi, he did not need to know more about it. "What were you wrong about?"
 
Alec smiled weakly and dropped his gaze to the floor. "Heh. Well, how I said it for one thing. I can't remember a time when I've been that insensitive. Insensitive, sure, but to that degree? Such an idiot. That, and... I was wrong about my reasons to not be adopted, I was wrong about not wanting to be adopted, and... oh, a whole bunch of things. I... I really, really want..." He stopped and bit his lip. "Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe I've missed my chance and there's no take-backs."
 
The way Dark looked at him altered. He had about to talk about how easy it is to not recognize how deeply someone else feels about something, and that doesn't mean you shouldn't apologize and do better, but he kept listening. And his breathing halted, "Alec," he said, his voice softening and nearly wavering, "Our feelings on it have not changed. We are unwavering in it being your decision."
 
Alec wrapped his arms around himself, hugging himself for a bit of comfort as he tried to find a way to express himself. "I know," he nearly whispered, "but... I already said one decision. Doesn't that cheapen it if I try to say... Well, what I want to say. It doesn't feel cheap to me, I just... I recognize how I messed up. I recognize that I didn't understand even myself. I recognize that, in a way, I've been lying to myself and looking for something that, even if it does exist, is stealing the happiness I could have here and now." He took a shuddering breath. "I messed up, and I want to take it back, but I don't want you or Mama or anyone else to think that I'm just playing with emotions and changing my mind based on the weather." Tears stung his eyes, but he tried to keep them back.
 
He shook his head lightly, and wondered if this is how Daizi had felt when he was struggling to propose to her. It was obvious what he was trying to say. What was it Daizi had said eleven years ago? You have to actually ask me. It was strange being on this side of it. "It does not cheapen it." Dark grabbed Alec's shoulder, and from the unexpected turn of the conversation, his grip was on the verge of too tight for a moment before he collected himself, "I know what you said before, Alec, but you already told me you had incorrect information.
 
Alec jumped at Dark's sudden and rather tight grip and looked up at him. Dark looked so... encouraging? It was a weird description, but it was the best one he had for the jumble of emotions on the carefully controlled face of his foster father. No, not foster, his father. Just like how Daizi was his mother. paperwork might not actually matter with how they all felt about each other, but that didn't mean they had to skip it. Why not take the plunge?

Alec took a deep breath and looked at Dark. "Then... I don't know how to ask this, but maybe... maybe we could talk... about adoption?" he asked carefully.
 
"I would love to talk with you about adoption." Dark told him, his voice growing hoarse on the third word before regaining composure, never looking away for a moment, feeling his heart thundering in his chest. He was still holding onto Alec, and he wanted to pull him in tightly, but was trying to gauge his son's reaction.
 
That was it. The tears came. He couldn't help it. He looked up at Dark and gave him a watery but genuine smile. "Good. Because I'd love to talk about it, too." Then he initiated the hug, leaning into Dark and hugging him as tightly as he dared. "I love you," he whispered into Dark's chest.
 
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