Mercy In You (Dave Gahan x Alan Wilder)

4. Devotion

Five days later, January 13th 1993, 8:02am, the dining room:

"Hi, I'm just calling to see if any appointment slots are available?"
Dave made his phone call to the doctor's surgery, meanwhile Alan listened from a neighbouring room.
"Oh that's lucky." He laughed before shrugging his shoulders and sighing. "I've just found out I'm pregnant and I'm not sure what I'm meant to do next. It was a few days after Christmas, yeah. Mhm... No, I haven't, I stopped smoking and drinking as soon as I found out. But... I do have a history of drug use and addiction..."
The loss of confidence in Dave's voice as he spoke was rapid, instead being taken over by shame.
"Well, that's the thing, I'm getting clean now, without question. This is... A big motivation, you know? But I'm worried because I don't know how difficult it'll be to stop, and I don't want to go down the rehab route. I already have, more than once, and I don't think I could face it again. Is there another way around it?"
Then came silence. Dave no longer spoke, only listened. Distant murmurings of what the practitioner responded to him with was all Alan could hear.
"Okay... Okay..." Dave soon began speaking again, however. "Yeah, no that sounds fine. And I just want to check, sorry, where my partner and I will have to go? Antenatal Care Unit, okay. Thanks very much, you too, bye."
Placing the phone back into its compartment, Dave left the dining room and walked into the living room opposite, where Alan was waiting for him.

~♡~♡~♡~♡~
The living room, 8:24am:

By now, Alan had switched the television on and was flicking between channels using the remote control. He had just arrived on the weather forecast when he noticed the beaming presence of his partner from the corner of his eye, thus he turned around to greet him.
"What did they say?" He asked, tapping the free space beside him on the couch as an indication for Dave to sit down, which he promptly did so.
"They've given me an appointment today at noon. Last one avaliable, too." Dave said. "I'll apparently need some blood drawn to actually confirm the pregnancy. But three tests can't be wrong... Right?" He continued, seeming on-edge.
Alan chuckled before giving his next response, making sure to reassure Dave in the process. "It would be very unusual for you to receive three false positives, my love."
"Can you imagine?" He began to laugh. "I've told Mart and everything now and he'd-"
"You've told Martin?"
"Shit." A sense of dread overcame him, realising that he had not informed Alan of his conversation with Martin in the studio. "Yes, I have. I'm sorry. I must've completely forgotten to tell you about that."
"No, no, it's fine, baby, but I did think we were gonna wait it out a bit? Like, until you'd been to the doctor's?"
"I know, but you should've seen the look on Mart's face; I really couldn't keep it from him or else he would've totally lost his shit."
"I mean, yeah, fair enough." Alan laughed subtly as he spoke. "We know what Martin's like. But what about Fletch? He'll have to know at some point, too."
"Of course we'll tell him; I'm not trying to leave him out or whatever, I just don't want to spit it out to him like I had to do with Mart."
"Yeah, I don't see a problem with that. We should definitely wait to tell him until after this appointment, at least."
Dave responded with a nod, standing up from the couch with the intention of going upstairs to get dressed.
"Have you had any breakfast?" His partner asked, out of the blue.
"Only something small so I don't feel as ill, but I feel really full for some reason." He sighed, putting a hand to his lower stomach and rubbing it.
"Like, bloated?"
"Yeah."
"That's probably a pregnancy thing. But I don't think you physically look any different."
"I feel different already. It's... Weird." Alan watched Dave's expression change as he tried to think of what to add next but, alas, he'd lost his train of thought. "I'm gonna go and get ready now, anyway."
"Okay, love." He saw Dave off.
In the background, the television still blared nonsense. That as well as his own thoughts were all Alan had as company now as he stared blankly at the threshold of the room, where Dave had just exited. Thought after thought arrived, each one containing an association to their baby. Although he had now known for all of two weeks, it was still yet to sink in. He had never had wrap his head around something quite so colossal.