How Green Becomes Wood

"I am not bald shaming but I am... hair praising, I suppose." Dark answered. He remembered what Declan had said, all that time ago, about his family's medical history. He wasn't sure if he had the heart to tell them, just then, "That would be a question for Tristan. Or, for Ciara, I suppose. Baldness typically comes through the mother's side of the family, from what I recall."
 
"Does it? I guess we'd have to ask Aunt Ciara, then," Alec said cheerfully. "She'd probably know!"

Xander ran his hand through his hair forlornly. "Yeah. I hope she says they had thick hair until the day they died."
 
"In the file cabinet, we have the medical records from your paternal side, I do not recall if Ciara provided any from your maternal side, but I am certain she must have, but I would trust Tristan is aware of any conditions more than other relatives were," Dark said, and after he finished the sentence, he got up to make a note he should really reach out to Tristan about that. He suspected if anyone was going to forget about certain conditions, it would be Declan. Even if it wasn't intentional.

"I hope she does too," Daizi said sympathetically, "There are genetic tests for those things, actually. Dark had some done because he knows so little about his genetic history."
 
"Don't you know stuff like that already since you work with him?" Xander asked Alec.

Alec shrugged. "Not really. If I bring something up, he will talk about it, but he never initiates, and I rarely think to. We mostly talk about work-related things. If no one comes in for a while, then we talk about other things. He asks how my Cyr wheel practice is going or about school. Stuff like that."
 
"Bringing up medical history at work seems like a violation of something," Daizi laughed, "but I'm sure he'd answer if asked seriously, at the right time. If it were me, I would, anyway, I understand why it's important. Although I think if I had a long-lost relative and I showed up, the first thing I'd have to tell them is it's not a condition they can develop." She meant her lack of sight.

"I was just pleased to learn I am not genetically predisposed to dementia or alzheimer's," Dark commented. Out of everything on the tests he underwent, that was a significant fear of his.
 
"I get that," Xander agreed.

Alec patted Dark's arm. "Even if you were - and I'm glad you aren't - we'd take care of you. I promise."

"Now that's a weird thought, but, yeah, he's right," Xander commented.
 
"I know you would," Dark replied, squeezing Alec's hand firmly and looking at him with a profound love in his eyes. It was one thing to show care to someone in the present. It felt like something else altogether for his sixteen-year-old to promise to take care of him decades from now, if he was in the throws of a traumatized illness. "But I am glad: I would not want to forget." He gestured with one hand to their surroundings, but he meant the people. And the dog.

"It makes me anxious just thinking about it," Daizi admitted, pressing her face into Dark's shoulder. "It'd kill me on the spot if you ever forgot me."

"You, Spider? I do not think I ever could."
 
"What about you, Mama? Do you have anything like that in your history?" Alec asked, suddenly worried. He meant what he said. If anything happened, he would bend over backward and twist in three different directions to take care of his parents, but he did not want that to happen for any of their sakes.
 
"Not as far as I'm aware," Daizi replied, nuzzling her cheek against Dark so he would put his arm around her, "I really don't think anyone in my family has any of those sorts of disorders. Amty Zeinab is in her 80s and is still going pretty strong. But my father had lymphoma when I was younger, that's why I had to move home when I did, rather than finishing high school in the US. I'm still a few years younger than he was, when he developed it, but I'm checked every time I go to the doctor, so it'll be caught earlier than it was with him, if I develop it. And he survived, I'm told he just has curly hair now, when he had straight hair like me, before. Besides that..." She shrugged, "There are other diseases and conditions people contact when they get old. My grandad on my mother's side died of lung cancer, but he smoked constantly. That's a horrible way to go, and why I do not abide smoking. But for the most part, it's the normal things like heart disease and strokes, but I don't think those are gene-linked. Most of my grandparents died in their 70s, Amty Zeinab is the last of her generation, but I think it'll take a nuclear explosion to take her out."
 
The twins glanced at each other, surprised and impressed. What would it be like to know your family history off the top of your head like that? Maybe it was a grown-up thing. They hadn't even thought about family histories until lately. They didn't like it for one reason: they had to think about their parents dying. It was a necessary thing, but they weren't ready to be as accepting of it as they were.

"Back to baby groups," Xander said, "When are you going back?"
 
"To that one?" Daizi asked, "I don't think we will. It was such an uncomfortable experience, I don't want to put myself back around them, I don't think."

"I do not like feeling like I am on display," Dark agreed with a sigh, "So we are going to look for another one."
 
"This is only the first one we have gone to," Dark pointed out, "and people have a lot of kids. Some people even join a few, and most are not particularly large."

"Some we looked into have a waiting list, if you can believe that! A waiting list!" Daizi replied, shocked by the notion of it, "The people today were telling us we should have been applying to preschools a year ago!"
 
"I could have sworn you'd gone to one before," Xander frowned.

"I think that was an actual support group," Alec commented.

"The waiting list thing is hilarious. I wonder how many of the people supposedly in the group even have a kid the right age, but they stay because they waited," Xander smirked.

"If I ever have a kid, I'm not putting them in preschool," Alec said matter-of-factly.
 
"We've gone to so many things for her and about her, that I don't even remember what we've been to and what we've avoided." Daizi sighed, "I love her so much, and I'm glad to have her, but she is so much work trying to get her... foundations... built. And that's why it's good to live around big families, because you get to skip most of it."

Dark squeezed her gently, "We have not decided if we are putting Ivy into preschool or not. The social skills and an adjustment to how kindergarten will feel would be beneficial, I suspect."
 
"We used to walk past a preschool when we lived on a different street, and it looked the same as a daycare," Xander remarked.

"True, but we don't know what happened inside the building. That might have just been recess," Alec said.

Xander frowned. "You know what's annoying? The fact that we lose recess in high school. How's that fair? We still need movement to get our brains working or calming down."
 
"Neither of us went to preschool, I think," Daizi commented, trying to recall, but obviously they were both toddlers, "I had my governess, so I don't think I would've been sent to school as well."

"Preschool is not very common in Iraq, and I doubt I would have been enrolled in anything optional," Dark commented, then shook his head, "I think gym class is your recess, now, although it is only half a semester."

"And adults don't get a recess."
 
"Gym class doesn't count," the twins said simultaneously.

"Adults should get recess breaks," Alec said stoutly.

"Some places give them nap breaks, I read," Xander commented.

Alec grinned. "Or maybe adult recess is going to the water cooler and gossiping."
 
"I've never actually worked in an office with a water cooler," Daizi commented, only just realizing it, "But I get a full hour lunch break, sometimes longer depending on my schedule."

"I had exactly one planning period, so I had to eat and work simultaneously," Dark sighed, "but thankfully that is no longer my reality. The teaching schedule is kinder than when I was a waiter, though."
 
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