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For the past week or so, it’s been happening more or less around 1am. It’s predictable enough by now that Abed sometimes wakes up for it, although not always.
This time, he does. He blinks his eyes open to pitch black and blissful quiet, knowing that both those things are bound to be short-lived.
While his eyes adjust to the darkness, he yawns and stretches, then fumbles around the bedside table until he makes contact with his phone. He squints as he turns it on to check the time—1:02. Hopefully his internal clock doesn’t get too used to this. It’s probably only a matter of days until their schedule shifts again.
Troy is still dead asleep, and Abed knows by now that he shouldn’t try to wake him. His body doesn’t settle into rhythms and routines as easily as Abed’s does, and the last thing he needs at this hour is for his husband to be grumpy about not getting his extra minute and a half of rest.
Even though, as it turns out, it’s less than that.
There’s a crackle coming from his nightstand and then he hears the first sounds of stirring - a couple faint whimpers before that first, high-pitched wail cuts right down the hall and into their bedroom.
Sometimes he wonders why they even bother with the baby monitor.
“Oh my god. Not already,” Troy mumbles. His voice is deep and gravelly as he scrunches his face up and rolls over to bury his face into the pillow. “I swear we went to bed, like, ten minutes ago.”
“Yes, already,” Abed’s own voice doesn’t sound much better. He nudges at Troy’s shoulder until he turns back over and holds his arms out.
He yawns again and climbs out of their bed. “M’kay,” He sighs, indulging Troy’s dramatics and grabbing both his hands to haul him up as well. “You go to the nursery, I’ll get their bottles.”
A second cry joins in with the first as they step out into the hall, so he presses a quick kiss to Troy’s cheek before veering off down the stairs.
Time is of the essence.
*
Everything is still new and nerve-racking and he can’t picture it getting easier, even though their parents keep telling them it will. These past three months have been the hardest of his life, and of Troy’s. Separately and together, they’ve had their greater-than-average share of trials and tribulations and crises. And those, as it turns out, were nothing compared to two tiny, vulnerable, defenseless, precious lives depending on them. He has no idea how that’s ever not going to be terrifying.
Little bits of it are getting easier, he supposes. He could do this middle-of-the-night walk to the fridge in his sleep, for example, even in total darkness. Muscle memory guides him just fine.
He also runs on autopilot reaching into the back of the fridge for their two pre-prepared bottles, closing his eyes against the light inside, and he doesn’t need to count anymore as he warms them up under the running hot water in the sink.
(No microwaving. Microwaving could heat the bottles unevenly, which could mean hot spots, which could mean little mouths getting burned, and they can’t have that. He’s had that filed away in his head since the first video they watched on bottle feeding.)
The cries haven’t died down by the time he’s making his way back upstairs. He hadn’t expected them to. They’re hungry and it’s almost impossible to calm them both at the same time anyway. Still, when he gets to the nursery, pauses in the doorway for a moment.
Because the sight of his sleepy husband swaying back and forth, their daughters both clinging to his shirt, makes him wonder for a split second if this is real life.
Yes, he tells himself, it is. We’ve been over this. Now don’t be useless.
Troy lets out an audible sigh of relief when Abed takes Alana off of him and hands over one of the bottles. It’s almost comical how quickly they start to calm down after that.
He’s pretty sure he’s still not completely awake, but he’s never more focused than when he’s holding a baby. Alana looks up at him for just a second with her eyes dark and pensive and he’s overcome with a wash of love so pure and boundless and soul-crushing that he needs to steady himself with a deep breath.
Once he’s sure that she’s latched onto her bottle, he glances over at Troy.
Izzie’s kicking and fussing in his arms and Abed watches as he rocks her gently. It’s pretty amazing, how Troy does that and the cries just fade out like magic until she finally takes her bottle. He’s so good at that.
Abed wishes he could do it as easily.
He freezes up when they cry unexpectedly. Only for a second, but still, it’s one second too long of icy dread as his mind rapidfire cycles through every possible thing that could be wrong, and what if it’s serious, and what if it’s something he can’t fix, before his dad instinct takes over and propels him forward.
He doesn’t know how to trust his process. Not about stuff like this.
Troy looks over at him then, like he’s reading his mind. His eyes are soft as he makes his way over to him.
“You’re so cute when you’re holding them,” he whispers, resting his head down on Abed’s shoulder. “I can’t stand it.”
“You’re saying that because you could tell I was having a moment,” Abed says, but smiles anyway. Even if that’s the case, he knows that Troy really does feel that way. He’s told him enough.
“I’m saying that because I mean it,” Troy corrects him.
The second time, Abed doesn’t deflect.
*
“When do they start sleeping through the night?” Troy asks around a yawn.
The girls have long since finished their bottles, been burped and rocked to sleep and laid back down. Meanwhile they’ve settled onto the loveseat at the far end of the room, curled around each other and not at all willing to walk back down the hall.
They have this problem sometimes. Abed’s not sure if they’re overly exhausted or overly attached or both. He turns his head and presses his lips to Troy’s hairline.
“Not until they’re at least 11 pounds.”
Troy blinks up at him tiredly.
“That’s about the weight where they don’t need a nighttime feeding anymore,” he explains. “Metabolically, anyway.” His own eyes fall shut as Troy tucks his face back into the side of his neck. “They’ll get there.”
Troy nods in agreement and nuzzles closer.
“You’re a good dad, you know,” Troy murmurs after a while, his voice slightly muffled by the fabric of Abed’s shirt. “There’s no one else I’d want to do this with.”
That makes him feel a certain kind of way. An emotion he’s too tired to distinguish, but it’s warm and good and makes him draw his arms around Troy even tighter.
“You too,” he whispers. “You make this feel right.”
They lie there for a few more quiet moments, and Abed almost thinks Troy’s fallen asleep when he lifts his head up.
“Wanna go back to bed?” He asks quietly.
Abed looks from Troy’s eyes, to the cribs in the middle of the room, and then back again.
“Not really,” he admits. “Do you?”
Troy laughs breathily and rests his forehead against Abed’s cheek. “No.”
They shift themselves into a now-very-familiar position, laying on their sides. The loveseat is long enough if they curl up just right. Abed haphazardly covers them with one of their spare blankets, and by the time he lays his head down, Troy is already back to sleep. He wraps his arm over his waist and lets his own very heavy eyelids close.
And soon enough, lulled by the three heartbeats he loves the most in this world, Abed drifts off too.