Harsh

♡ trente-deux ♡

Things seemed to get better when Troye started kangaroo care. Brielle was still on her ventilator, but the nurse told them she would probably only be on it for a week more or so. Blaine, on the other hand, was only continuing to improve. They had gotten him started on trying to adjust to Troye's milk, so if Troye wasn't with the babies he was attempting to use the pump so he could start producing for his baby boy.

Even better, the CPS had received a more urgent case and had put there's on hold for a week or two, which proved that perhaps maybe they wouldn't take Jacob and Troye's babies after all. For three more days after Troye had started kangaroo care they stayed at the hospital, but when the babies were a week old, the nurses began pushing Troye and Jacob's departure.

The sub was moving rather well, was easily and efficiently using the restroom in both forms, and had gotten his stitches, which was actually more of one long stitch with a bead at the end, removed on his sixth day of being at the hospital. It was the afternoon of day seven that the nurses brought in a clipboard with paperwork. "You're good to sign out, Mr. Mellet!" the nurse told him. "Bixenman," he corrected softly. "And what do you mean sign out?" The nurse slipped the clipboard to Jacob instead, and the man realized what was happening. They had already stayed a few days over from when Troye would normally have gone home.

Jacob had noticed that the NICU was unfortunately gaining at least one or two babies each day, and he figured that the hall they were in must have been fairly full, perhaps with mothers who needed it a little more. "I figured you would be sick of the hospital by now," the nurse chuckled. "You can go home, sleep in your own bed, you don't have to live off of hospital food-" Troye shook his head slowly,

"My babies are here. I'm perfectly content..." "We kind of need to free the room up though," the nurse finally pressed, and normally Jacob would be irritated, but the woman genuinely sounded apologetic. "As a mother I can't even imagine what it would feel like to have to leave one of my babies in the hospital while I went home, but we've had an increase in preemies in the NICU and so we kind of need the space for mothers with sicker babies." Like always when Troye was beginning to panic, his eyes flashed to Jacob's for support.

But the Dom was at a loss. As much as he wanted to stay with the babies too, he knew that if when Troye had first come into the hospital and they hadn't been allowed to stay with their babies because the rooms were full of people who didn't need to stay, he'd be fairly upset. It felt as if he were being torn in two, but he nodded to the nurse, "I'll talk to him." A look of betrayal flashed across Troye's face, and Jacob wanted so badly to take it back, to tell the nurse that they'd be staying, but the nurse had already left the room.

"I don't want to leave them," Troye, who had been looking through some baby clothes that Luke had brought for something that they could possibly put Blaine in, shakily reached for the recliner so he could sit. "I can't leave my babies-" "Pet..." Jacob said softly. "We have to go home. You heard the nurse, other people need this room. We're lucky, our babies are okay. What if someone who has a baby a lot sicker than ours needs this room but they can't stay in it because we're here? How would you feel leaving the hospital if our babies were still sick?"

"Brielle is still having problems!" Troye tried. "Just the other day t-they had to give her more medicine in her IV because her blood pressure was low and she's still on the ventilator." "I don't want to leave her either," the Dom said sadly. "Or Blaine. Not our baby girl or our baby boy, if the hospital wasn't full I'd make the nurses let us stay. But... we've been here a week. It's time for us to leave."

Troye pulled the tiny onesie he held in his hands up to his face, hiding from Jacob as a choked sob escaped him, and then his shoulders were heaving as he broke down in despair. "No..." he wailed. "Please, Jacob, I don't want to, please talk to them-" Jacob couldn't even bring himself to scold Troye for saying his real name anymore. Even though it had once been one of Jacob's most important rules, it didn't seem as important anymore. He preferred his real name coming from Troye's lips, it proved just how much Troye trusted him.