Mercy In You (Dave Gahan x Alan Wilder)

9. Bloodline

{Continuation} February 8th 1993, 2:50pm, the car park:

"Dave?" Sylvia enquired. "Is that really you?"
"Course it is." Her son responded, close to tears anew.
"It's just... You never phone me anymore. What's the matter?" The pronunciation of her words was fretful.
"Everything is. I just want to come home."
"That's very vague."
"I want to come home; how else am I meant to word it?"
"But why? Why do you want to come home?"
"Because I can't fucking stand-"
"Language!"
"Sorry, I'm sorry; I can't stand living in that house without Alan. I feel like he left behind this massive void and I'm so alone; it's driving me insane."
"Are you at home right now?"
"No, I'm stood outside the Antental Care Unit; I've just had an appointment. Doctor wanted to make sure everything's OK because I've been suffering so much."
"Well, is everything OK?" His mother asked.
"Yeah, everything's fine. I mean, except for my weight, but that's not important." He dismissed.
"Have you lost again?"
"Mum, I said it's not important."
"Sounds like a "yes", then."
"Please, just stop. I don't want to talk about it. All I want right now is to move back in with you."
"... I'm not sure I can let you do that, Dave."
"Why not?"
"It wouldn't be as simple as you just moving back in, and I'm saying that as though you've been gone only a little while," She scoffed. "But it's been over a decade, sweet. Your siblings are long gone, too. My nest has been empty for years."
"But that doesn't mean I can't move back in now."
"Not necessarily, no, but I don't think it's quite the right thing to do-"
"There is no one else, Mum!" He uncontrollably cried out. "Andy's still in the hospital with Mart anyway but he lives with his girlfriend, Mart can barely fit himself in his flat, nevermind pregnant me as well, it's so small and Alan? The father of these children and the person who's responsible for them as much as I am, if not more? FORGET IT!"
His detonation inflicted a sharp speechlessness upon his mother, amid a realisation she could not have every answer and solution to her name. She looked out of the window and into her garden from where she stood in her kitchen, evidently taking notice of Dave's childhood bike; long forgotten and redundant by him. Memories, both good and bad, seemed to tug on the strings of her heart, and she slipped into a daydream.
"Mum." Her son sniffled, perturbed by the duration of time his mother had fallen silent for. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lash out, I-"
"It's OK." She shook her head to break herself out of her reverie. "You're OK."
"No I'm not. Couldn't be further from it." Dave could scarcely keep the telephone still as his hand trembled.
"You are OK, Dave. And I'll tell you why: you're still here. You have kept going every day since your split with Alan, despite all the pain you're in. It would've been very easy to allow yourself to rot in bed every day, but you haven't done that."
"Don't give me too much praise. This is the worst I've ever felt. I can't believe I'm saying that, really, because I thought my worst point was when I thought I could decide when I was going to die. I have such a fucked up ego."
"I don't think that."
"No, but I do. Otherwise, Alan wouldn't have left me."
"Leaving was Alan's choice and, to be quite frank, his loss. I cannot understand for the life of me why he would choose his own needs over yours. Such a selfish and foolish man."
"But he's the father of my twins."
"I'm aware, but that matters very little right now. Your father more or less did the same thing Alan has done; he walked away from you, your siblings and I when you were an infant. He confused and traumatised all of you by doing that and I was never able to forgive him. Some of me misses him greatly and feels horrendous guilt that things couldn't have been different whilst he was alive, but the rest knows I shouldn't have put up with his antics for as long as I did. All the warning signs were there before I even gave birth to you and yet we still stayed together until you turned six months so, believe me, I have somewhat of an understanding of what it's like to suffer with your relationship with the father of your children. Whilst you're pregnant, too."
Dave could construct only a sparse recollection of his biological father's presence in his life: something he had never, before that moment, paid his attention to, for he knew no differently than the company and commitment of his stepfather. He feared the confusion and anguish his own children's father could invoke, if nothing were to change. The mere thought of it sent a surge of panic through him; he felt as though his body had been set alight and his eyes grew increasingly sore, arid of all moisture.
"There's no way I'm letting that happen to them, Mum." He stated.
"I didn't think there was." She said back.
"I already can't imagine being in a separate room to them; it's really... Really strange. I've never felt that way about anyone. Not even Alan."
"That just means you're beginning to develop a connection to them, which is lovely."
"-I mean, definitely not Alan anymore. He forced us apart. I didn't tell him to move out."
"I know you didn't, sweetheart. For what reason would you ever do that?"
"I wouldn't, ever. But he told me he had no reason to stay."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Don't make me say it again." The pain Dave felt was yet to become bearable in the slightest.
"Unbelievable. That doesn't at all sound like the gentleman you introduced me to all those years ago."
"I know."
"But you did everything you could. Nothing more you could've done. If he wasn't going to stay, he wasn't going to stay. His choice. Don't beat yourself up."
"It's a bit late for that." He scoffed before making a shift in their topic. "It's bloody freezing out here. My fingers are going numb."
"Look, why don't you take yourself home and... And get a bag packed?"
"... You're letting me move back in?"
"I can let you stay with me for the foreseeable. That's the best I can do."
"Oh my God, Mum, I adore you. I seriously can't thank you enough; I need to get you a present or something."
"You're most welcome. Sylvia chuckled. "But you don't need to thank me. I'll do anything for you. I love you very much, Dave. And I love my little grandbabies on the way equally as much."
"They're going to love you so much, too. They already couldn't ask for a better grandmother."