How Green Becomes Wood

Daizi froze, not wanting to do the wrong thing here and overwhelm him, but she couldn't resist, and she rubbed his back and his hair, "I know, habibi," she whispered to him, doing her best to hold him despite the awkward angle, "I know. I love you just as much as I did yesterday, and the day before, and all of the days before that."

Dark quietly stood, leaving the pair be for the moment, and followed Alec out into the garden.
 
Xander shuddered uncontrollably as he cried, but, gradually, he drifted off into sleep from sheer exhaustion. He was so tired. So drained. Maybe later he'd feel better.

Alec felt like he was about to hyperventilate as he walked through the flowers, looking not unlike Xander had only yesterday as he paced frantically about, running his hands through his hair.
 
Daizi was content to sit there and hold him for as long as he slept. Some part of her worried how he may react when he woke up to find himself held, but she didn't know how she could let him go, after that. He was safe with her. She'd keep him safe.

"Alec," Dark said softly, walking up to him, "I am guessing you heard."
 
"I was right there. I was right there! I never knew! I didn't know anything!" Alec wailed as he continued pacing. "And Xander! He didn't do anything!" He panted for breath shaking. "I remember. He walked ahead of me, but I'd lingered behind because I saw something in the store window. Then, all of a sudden, he was walking back toward me from around the corner and told me to go back. I heard the crash, I heard it, but he said it was just a fender bender and we didn't want to be there when the cops came. But it wasn't a fender bender!"
 
"I don't want to think about him!" Alec yelled, waving his hands. "I don't want to feel bad for him! I don't want to be sympathetic and understanding! I just want to be angry at him! But I feel guilty for being angry! Why can't I be angry with him just for a little bit?"
 
Dark nodded, amd left Alec briefly to go to his shed. Then he came back out with some of the small, more easily snappable or stompable things he had made, all either prototypes he no longer needed or mistakes he couldn't fix. He handed one to Alec, "Then break something. We can try screaming if it does not help."
 
"Thank you," Alec mumbled out of habit as he took the wood pieces. He snapped through the first two pieces viciously, but it felt wrong to break things even now as much as he wanted to. By the fourth piece, he was crying. He dropped the pieces of wood and turned to Dark hugging him desperately and pressing his face into him.
 
Alec held onto Dark, feeling lost in a sea of conflicting and confusing emotions. Fresh grief for his mother. Grief for his brother and what he'd witnessed. Anger at his brother for hiding it. Anger at the world in general that things had to be so darn hard!

Gradually, he calmed down into a state of hiccups. He still held onto Dark, but he wasn't crying anymore. "I'm sorry," he finally sniffled. "For everything. Everything that's happened."
 
"What do you have to apologize for?" Dark asked, still swaying. The motion didn't consciously occur to him, it was something that had been ingrained in him over the past nine months trying to soothe his daughter. A crying person was rocked, so he rocked Alec, just like how inside, Daizi had rocked Xander. "You have not done anything wrong."
 
"I feel like I've done something wrong, but I don't know what," Alec admitted, his voice trembling between hiccups. "I know it's not true and it's kind of silly, but that's how I feel. I don't want to feel that way."
 
"That is okay," Dark promised him, moving him to the swing bench so they could sit down, "You do not need to know. But if you do feel sorry, and feel like you need to apologize, then I forgive you, for whatever it is you feel like you need to apologize for. I forgive whatever it is."
 
Alec sniffled and hiccuped again as he sat down. He wiped his face with his sleeve, annoyed at his own body for its continued hiccuping. "Thank you," he mumbled and tried to take a deep breath only to hiccup again. Curses! "I guess this explains why he's been such a jerk lately. If that secret's been wanting out."
 
"It must have been a very difficult thing to try to cope with," Dark said, putting one arm around Alec and pulling him into his side, "and sometimes, with trauma like that, you do not even fully remember it until suddenly you do. "It was a horrible thing that happened, and a horrible thing to see. But now it's out, now we know. So now you both can start to heal."
 
Alec nodded and nestled into Dark's side. He didn't say anything for a while, allowing himself to calm down and feel the evening breeze and just... be for a little bit. It had been a horrible thing. So horrible. And Xander had seen it all. He squeezed his eyes. Now that he was mostly over his anger, he felt pain and horror for Xander. But now it was out. Now the wound could be addressed. Now Xander could heal, and so could Alec, and maybe even help each other.

"I'm sorry I broke your teacup," Alec said softly. "I'll clean it up when we go in."
 
"Now that," Dark said, giving the best comforting smile he could manage, "I forgive you for with full knowledge of what you did. From the little I saw, it was one I did not like every much anyway. When you are ready, I will help you clean it up."

Inside, Daizi was taking this rare moment she had with Xander to finally get to feel what he looked like. If she could be gentle encouraging to never wake Ivy, she trusted she wouldn't wake Xander, either. It was strange to truly recognize for the very first time in almost two years how he truly did have the same face as his brother. They seemed so different to her, she expected something else, somehow.
 
Alec smiled and almost laughed at that, but an annoying hiccup interrupted him. "Thank you, Baba." He sighed and looked up at the sky. "I hate how we had to end up here, but... I am so very grateful and thankful that we did end up here. You are the best Baba I've ever seen. You really are, and maybe not perfect, but you're perfect for us."

Xander stirred a little and sighed in his sleep, but he didn't wake. Exhaustion had claimed him mind and body, and nothing short of a catastrophe was going to wake him. Plus, Daizi's touch was strangely soothing when he wasn't fighting against it.
 
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