How Green Becomes Wood

When Alec pulled away, Dark gently cupped his face in his hands, his eyes searching the teen's face for something. If there was something he expected to find, he'd never voice it, but he searched nonetheless. "You need not thank me." He finally, still holding onto Alec's face, "You mean too much to me to ever be in my debt. I would go to the ends of the earth for you, and I can count on one hand the people I would walk so far for. For you, I would." He rubbed his thumb against Alec's cheek and then let go, stretching back up to his full height, "Go rest, Alec, you need it."

"It's okay not to know," Daizi promised him, sitting down beside him on the couch, "and you don't have to decide now. What's in the pictures?"
 
"Ba," Alec sniffled, rubbing his eyes, "you're going to make me cry again." He wanted to say so much more, to try to convey what Dark's words meant to him, but everything he thought of sounded like empty platitudes. He turned and hurried away before he could start bawling again. He was getting rather tired of crying. It was exhausting.

"Mum and Ciara, mostly. There's," he paused to get an official count, "five in all. This one has a lot of scratches on it, I don't think on purpose? There's two other girls standing with them posing for something. I think Aunt Ciara received an award, but I can't make out what it says on the thing she's holding up. I guess it's their friends. This one is them at the beach. Aunt Ciara, Mum, and I guess that's our grandmother?" He flipped the picture over. "It doesn't say on the back. I'll have to compare it to the other pictures in the photo album. She looks as uptight as Aunt Ciara even at the beach."
 
"Well," Dark replied in his deep, gentle voice, "I do not want to do that." And saying so, he stood and went elsewhere as Alec hurried away to not drag the moment out any longer.

"You can ask her about them, when you have the time," Daizi said, "I worry about what it was like growing up for them both. I remember she said their father died not long after their younger brother did."
 
"I guess their mother had to be the hard-core single mother, too," Xander commented. He frowned at the picture. "I wonder why she wasn't more supportive of our mum, then? You'd think of anyone, she'd get it. It's weird." He shook his head and set it aside. "This is another beach one. Looks like they are... maybe fourteen and sixteen? Ish? I dunno. Teen girls all look the same to me. Age wise."
 
"Maybe she was scared." Daizi suggested, turning her head to the side, "It doesn't make it right, but if she knew what it was like raising children on her own... We know from what Ciara has said how strict and unforgiving the rules were. When the very thing you're afraid of comes true, not everyone rises to the occasion, as sad as that is. I wish she had." She sighed, rubbing Ivy's back. With the twins, there was no reason to be afraid of them accidentally impregnating a girl. Alec was only just showing interest in them, Xander still had none, and even if Alec did make a mistake... She doubted he'd respond the way his progenitor had. Neither herself nor Dark would allow him to, and if he managed to keep it a secret, she suspected Xander wouldn't let him either. But Alec would stay. Her heart may lie to be kind, but her third eye only spoke the truth. Alec would be scared, unready, and certainly flawed as a father, at least if he became one soon, but he would stay.

Ivy, though? She was an adorable bundle of mystery. Daizi, emphatically believing in second sight and divinations, sometimes believed she caught glimpses of who her daughter would be, but they were hazy, and hard to differentiate from simple, parental hope for her baby's future. Maybe she would end up a teen mom. Daizi certainly hoped not, and the thought of it terrified her. She could see in her teenage sons the lack of the maturity needed to raise a child---at 38, she felt like she lacked the needed maturity--- but it was Ivy's lot to bear more than merely the postpartum turmoil, the thought of her daughter so young, so scared, going through it all? Yes, she understood reacting in fear. But she knew, also, that if Ivy was ever in that situation, herself and Dark would stick by her, so she'd never be alone.

"Dark would be the one to guess the ages," She said, keeping her recent thoughts private, "If you didn't want to ask. I wonder if they visited the ocean, like we did, or if it was taken at a lake? What a wonder it'd be if your mum took the same vacation at around your age that we took you on."
 
Xander muttered agreement to Daizi's assessment of his maternal grandmother. He paused to consider how he felt. It was strange. He felt like he should resent her, and maybe even a year or less ago, he would have, but now? He was annoyed and slightly confused by her actions, but he didn't fully resent her. It helped that she was barely more than a picture. He didn't know her enough to resent her. He knew knowing someone wasn't always needed to resent them, but it just didn't stand out to him. He was, at best, disgruntled. He set the picture aside and started repacking the box so the items would be safe from small, grabbing hands.

"I might ask later. Might be kind of interesting to know," he agreed. "It looks kind of oceany to me, but I can't say for sure. I don't recognize the area." He picked up the books and looked them over. "Hmm. Fault in Our Stars and... This one's colored over. Maybe she wasn't supposed to be reading it." He opened the inside cover. "The Boyfriend List? Never heard of it. Barely know anything about the stars one. I thought it was a movie."
 
"I remember The Fault in Our Stars, vaguely. It released while I was still in Egypt, so I never read it, but I remember people online talking about it. I've not heard of the other one at all." She hummed lightly, wanting to touch these artifacts, but not daring to try to find something on the table and risk knocking something breakable to the ground, "I wonder if she annotated her books."
 
Xander flipped through The Fault in Our Stars quickly. "There's a bunch of hearts in this section and a few words scribbled here and there." He glanced at her and Ivy. "Um. If Ivy needs Dinner... I could show you some of this other stuff later," he offered hesitantly. He could tell she was curious but also didn't want her to feel obligated to sit and fondle a stranger's strange items.
 
"Interesting..." Daizi murmured, trying to imagine what it must have been like, then. It made her want to look up when the book came out so she could guess where in her life Tara would've been. In her arms, Ivy continued to grab at Daizi's shirt and chest, only managing to expose her mother's bra strap and nothing more intimate, gurgling unhappily. She was hungry, didn't anybody care? "I should go feed her, she's getting grumpy," Daizi agreed as she rose to her feet and pulled her shirt back into position, she said, "I would love to talk more about it with you later though, okay? If not tonight, because you have school tomorrow, another day."
 
Daizi chuckled softly, "I would love that. Just be sure you get some sleep, okay? The week isn't over yet." She hesitated for a few moments before leaving, even as Ivy grumbled and fussed, "Xander?"
 
"I love you," She said, sounding just a bit sad despite the genuine warmth of her smile, "That's it." She lingered for a moment longer before going upstairs to finally nurse her frustrated infant.
 
"I love you, too, Mama," Xander said sincerely, looking at her. "A lot."

He watched her go and finished putting the things in the box. He really didn't know what he was going to do with a hard rubber toy of a fantastical creature he didn't even recognize (it looked to be of the Pokemon variety), but he figured he had time to decide. He didn't want to keep it all. He had no doubt Alec would want to keep every piece, but Xander didn't see the point of keeping it all. He hoped he could talk Alec into giving up some of it before their room exploded with stuff.

When he got up to his room, Alec was in bed asleep already. Alec started awake when Xander put the box down on a shelf and accidentally knocked over a book. "Oh. Hi. What time is it?"

"Not that late," Xander told him. "Mama is feeding Ivy."

"Oh, that's not bad." Alec yawned and pulled himself up. "Um. You got everything in the box, right?"

"Yep, it's all here," Xander assured him.

"Hey, do you think maybe our sights are set too small? Or too low. or something like that?" Alec asked.

Xander glanced at him. "Is this because of what Aunt Ciara said?"

"Maybe," Alec said, looking away. "I mean, Mama and Baba want us to do what we want to do. They'd support us if we were rock stars or plumbers, but... maybe I should be more practical than to hope for a career doing singing and dancing. At least you have your own business already, and it's something you like, but maybe I should get my head out of the clouds."

Xander walked over and sat on the bed. "I'm not going to lie, the vague plan of 'singing and dancing' is probably not going to pay the bills, but if you ever get around to making a real plan, I bet you could make it. Maybe not, but what have you got to lose by trying? You've got some backup skills and people to help you out, so it's cool if you want to try. Besides, I'm the one without lofty goals who should be considering the more practical side of things."

"But, your leather business," Alec said.

"Right now, I make enough money to turn a profit. That profit pays for my car, car-related stuff, snacks, and some horse stuff as well as putting some in savings to try to improve my business. If I ever decided to move out, I'd have to pay rent, pay for food, pay for a lot of stuff I don't have to pay for now. I don't know that I'd actually make it with what I've got going now. As of right now, it's more like a slightly lucrative hobby."

"I think if you wanted to do more with it, you could," Alec said softly.

Xander smiled and pulled him into a hug. "And I think you can do whatever the hell you want with your career. You might make it. You might not. I think what matters is that you put your heart into it."

Alec hugged him back tightly. "Thanks." As he pulled away, he asked, "Do you want to look at the new pictures and put them in the album?"

Xander meant to go back downstairs eventually, but he and Alec ended up sitting on the bed with the photo album talking about the people they'd never met, the ones they barely knew, and the unknown life of the one they knew best. Sometimes they laughed. Sometimes they almost cried. Still, the pages turned and the words kept coming. Eventually, they fell asleep with the book between them.
 
The next morning, Dark and Daizi were preparing for their days like always. There was, as promised, the box of donuts on the counter, but other than that, Dark was making coffee, Daizi was having a playful conversation with Ivy, and Enkidu was lying patiently, waiting for the inevitable drop of food.

"Good morning," Daizi said, hearing the footsteps, "Did you sleep well?"
 
Alec came around and kissed Daizi's cheek. "Like the dead! It was an excellent sleep. And a long one." He looked at Dark and brushed a hand over his gold sequined shirt paired with black pants and a belt with a gold buckle. "How do I look? Xander said I look like a misaligned disco ball."

"You do," Xander said dryly - in black as always, this time with long sleeves and four different types of silver clip-on earrings in one ear. He also had a silver belt buckle.

Alec ignored him. "I wanted to wear a necklace but thought it was to much. And did I get my makeup right?"
 
"Good," She replied, "You needed it."

Dark turned around and looked at his sons for a few moments with an unready expression, "You should invest in a gold liquid eyeshadow. Your makeup looks good, I think the different product would pull the entire outfit together. It would be avant garde." Truthfully, he thought Alec somewhat resembled a ballroom dancer, but that was okay. It was what he liked.

The morning light hit the sequins on Alec's shirt, which didn't help to disprove Xander's assertion. Seeing it, Ivy stared with wide-eyed amazement at her brother.
 
Alec snapped his fingers. "You're right! I have some yellow... maybe gold? I'm going to go look!" He ran back the way he'd come, taking his sparkles with him.

Xander turned his eyes to the ceiling and heaved a sigh before sitting down for breakfast. "He's going to blind half the class, lose sequins, cry about losing sequins, and then shove the thing in the back of the closet with promises that he's totally going to fix it."
 
"Ah!" Ivy fussed loudly, reaching out as Alec walked away and all the pretty sparkles vanished.

"Ssh, it's okay, baby," Daizi murmured with a little laugh, utterly unable to understand what it was that had caught her attention so utterly.

"At least he will bring brief joy to some." Dark said dryly, watching his daughter's distress with some dread for what it meant for his future, "And brief joy to himself."
 
"He has a bright future ahead of him. So does anyone else in the same, well-lit room," Xander smirked.

Alec came galloping back. "Fixed! What do you think?" He'd found a light gold dust eyeliner and applied it with a surprisingly delicate touch. He was learning not to be quite so heavy handed. He held out his arms and turned. The light sparkled brightly off the sequins.
 
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