You're Always You

Chapter Twenty-One

David Minett

"No."

"Dad."

David pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, his mother and sister watching him pace behind the couch. He hadn't expected this phone call to go over the moon, but he hadn't expected this kind of resistance, either.

Come on, Dad. I need this.

"Why should I?" Dad barked. "What's that little shit ever done for me?"

He saved your life once, but you don't remember. "Y'know," Dave said, letting his frustration get to him. "In another life, he could've been a cop, Dad. But neither of us were there for him when he needed us, and he had to take care of himself, by himself, and this is what happened. He is in this situation because of us, Dad. I'm trying to fix that. You don't help a kid's abandonment issues by abandoning him."

The line went silent, and for a moment, David thought his father had hung up. "Dad?"

Then he heard a sigh. "Davie....I've tried that before," Dad muttered. "And look at 'im now, still behind bars. I'm done trying to help him, David."

"Dad, he's in there right now because he was protecting Monica and ended up on the wrong side of the courtroom."

"What's wrong with Monica?"

....

"It's nothing, Dad, it's old news. Don't worry about it. The point is, he wasn't even doing anything shady this time. He doesn't deserve to be there, and he definitely doesn't deserve his own parents giving up on him. That's only gonna make it worse. You might be done, but I'm not. I will turn his ass around or so help me god, okay? But I can't without your help."

....

"...I'm sorry, David," Dad spoke. "...But no."

Damn it.

"Dad! Come on!" David cried imploringly, but his father was talking over him.

"We'll talk later son."

And then the line went dead for real.

"Damn it!" he exclaimed, tossing his phone onto an end table and beginning to pace with his fingers in his hair. Unfortunately, his father's stubbornness wasn't surprising, if disappointing. His stubbornness was what had kept him in the Army, instead of coming home and saving his marriage.

Stubbornness Lydia often claimed that David had inherited most out of his siblings, though he would like to think he was only stubborn about certain things, and not everything, because he had come home to focus on his relationship. He had come home to get married. His father was stubborn about himself, but David was only stubborn when it came to taking care of other people.

Which was why he was not giving up on Brett.

He couldn't give up on Brett. Not only because that was his little brother, but because if he did give up on Brett, he was never going home. At least, not for another year, and David didn't want to spend that much time in this universe. He wanted to spend as little time here as possible, he didn't know where, or when, the magic asshole would drop him back.

Not to mention, this reality sucked.

David didn't want to spend the rest of his life somewhere he had all these memories and no one else did. He didn't want to live here, knowing that in this life, so many years had gone by where he'd sat around with his fucking thumbs up his ass in Afghanistan, and his absence, his failure, had ruined everybody's lives.

Brett was in prison because of him.

Monica was in debt because of him.

Lydia was a stripper because of him.

And even if he turned all of this around, those facts would still be true. They would be past tense, but they wouldn't change. Brett would always have a record, Monica would always remember bouncing around majors like an ass, and Lydia would always have those years she'd suffered with Dickie as his fucking strip slave.

Fixing that going forward wasn't enough. David couldn't live knowing what he knew, what hadn't happened, and what could've happened. He couldn't live with nearly half of his life erased and replaced against his will, especially with all this undesirable shit.

If that was his fate, if he couldn't go home, he would never be able to look at any of them again without being reminded of what they'd all lost.

That was no fucking way to live.

David hated being negative, always tried to think on the brighter side of things, but this...wasn't easy to optimize. Didn't seem possible, even. So, with all of these thoughts in his head, he ended up leaving to go do something else, anything to take his mind off, and to not let his grumpiness rub off on his mother and sister, who had heard his half of the entire conversation.

So he decided to take care of the whole apartment situation, because he did not remember renting that place and it did not feel like home to him. He was getting his shit out, at least the essentials, and staying with his Mom more permanently. He would have to wait for the lease to expire, he supposed, but...that was fine.

He just didn't want to stay there.

Once again, he found his way back without the help of true memory, but this alternate reality memory of his, where he just seemed to know the way without actually being able to recall. It was weird, being there again, but it wasn't for long. He just grabbed some things and left again.

Though, being there did remind him that he had expenses. Rent.

....Monica's tuition now, too.

He'd shelled out a pretty penny for Lydia as well, and even if he wasn't here in this reality long, he needed a job. He needed to be able to sustain himself while he was here.

He wondered if the mall would still hire him even though it was seven years after they had before.

Though, on his way back to his Mom's, it did occur to him that the club Lydie worked at naturally had security guards. That wouldn't be a bad shout. He'd have an excuse to be there and watch over Lydia, be paid to watch over Lydia....

It'd be terribly uncomfortable, but at least as a fellow employee, the ladies would ignore him. He was there to work like they would be, and they wouldn't be soliciting him for cash. And he could throw out douchebags.

Arguably everyone that went to a stripclub as a customer was a douchebag, but the extra douchey ones.

Good plan.

As David got home, and was moving his stuff into his old bedroom, he heard Monica on the phone, and upon further inspection, with Lydia.

Good.

It was good that Monica and Lydia stayed in touch. If Lydie needed him, she could get to him easily, through Monica.

This was good.

Though he shot his sister a look as she started to claim that "boys aren't good for doing cool stuff with" and she amended herself pretty quickly. If she only knew what kind of cool stuff they'd done together in their reality.

Fucking alternate universe bullshit.

But, hearing his sister make plans to go to the museum with Lydia next week was a good thing, too. Maybe, just maybe, Davie could score himself an invite.

Fingers crossed all of this went well.