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Shane took his chance while he had it. Ilya had gone to Wyatt’s place to hang out, probably to play video games without being interrupted by a bunch of kids since it was just Wyatt at home this weekend. So, Shane carefully put Misha in his crib after settling him down for a nap and gathered his girls into the kitchen.
“What are we doing daddy?” Alina asked as Shane helped her and Mila both climb onto the island stools. He admired the curls in their hair, and the pigtails Ilya had given them this morning. Adopted they may be, but Shane saw his husband in his children every day and it filled him with such a sense of joy sometimes it made his toes wiggle.
“We’re going to bake a cake baby, for Papa,” Shane explained as he started gathering all the ingredients and tools they’d need. “A big, yummy, chocolate one and you girls are going to help.”
“Is it pappy’s birfday?” Mila asked.
Shane chuckled at her silly voice that was so adorable it made him want to squeeze her. “Not quite Milochka.”
“Then why are we baking him a cake daddy?” Alina asked. “I thought cakes were for birthdays?”
“Not always,” Shane replied as he finally located the specific recipe he was looking for in one of their cookbooks. “Do you girls want to know a secret?”
“DA!” Shane winced slightly at Mila’s volume. She was definitely their loudest kid, and she definitely got it from her papa.
“Well… now this is something a lot of people never even figure out their whole lives, so you’ve got to really hold onto it okay,” Shane began as he carefully measured everything that they would need into separate bowls, so the girls could then mix it all together. “But you don’t need a special occasion to do something nice for someone,” He explained. “It’s okay to do something nice for them just because you love them.
“So, we are making a ‘I Love You’ cake for daddy?” Alina asked again as Mila tried to read the numbers on the scale as Shane poured out enough flour.
Shane had slotted himself between the two island stools, so the girls could be as closely involved as possible. He knew he was only giving himself more cleanup to do having a different bowl for each ingredient, but he remembers Yuna doing the same for him when he was a child and wanted the same for his own children. Anyway, he found that mess didn’t bother him as much after becoming a father, because the mess was a sign of his children’s existence in the world and he longed to find things out of place at every corner if only to know they were once there having fun.
“That’s right Yu Yu, we’re making an ‘I Love You’ cake. Shall we write ‘we love you’ on it when we do the icing?”
“DA!!” Mila shouted yet again.
“Yeah!” Alina said agreeing enthusiastically herself.
Shane smiled at his wonderful little monsters. Oh they were absolutely going to make a terrible mess of the icing, but Ilya would find it hilarious and love it all the same. Shane did think the writing should at least be legible though.
“Okay, daddy will write it on first really big, and then you can both take a turn to go over each letter with better icing, okay?”
They agreed enthusiastically again and Shane finished up measuring each ingredient.
“Okay, so what do we remember we have to do first, from last time we baked a cake?” Shane asked.
“Wet stuff first?” Alina asked as Mila shrugged having completely forgotten when they even last baked one, which was only last month for Yuna’s birthday.
“That’re right, well done!”
So, Shane helped the girls carefully pour and mix each ingredient they needed into the big mixing bowl until everything was thoroughly incorporated together. He himself poured it into the cake tin and then carefully placed it into the oven that had already been preheating. It was exactly then that the baby monitor started to go off with Misha’s cries.
“Okay, I’m just going to go get your brother and then I’ll be right back okay. Mila Mei, do not lick any of the batter out of the bowl,” Shane said remembering what he almost witnessed her do last time.
“Awe but whyyyyy daddy?”
“It’s not good for you Mei Mei. Raw flour is very bad, you shouldn’t eat it,” Shane explained. He watched as his little girl pouted and crossed her arms with a huff and stopped himself from laughing. Instead, he reached into the freezer and produced two sticks of ice cream. “Here, you both did such a good job helping so you can have these as a little treat,” he said handing them one each.
“Yay! Thanks daddy,” Alina said while Mila had already torn open the packet.
“Okay I really have to go get your brother. Now remember, no touching the oven under any circumstances. It is hot and it will burn you and pappy will be very upset if he comes home to his girls crying from terrible burns, and he won’t even notice the cake we made him then, understood?”
Mila nodded absentmindedly as she was far too absorbed in her ice cream while Alina rolled her eye, used to her dad’s dramatics already. But they were good girls and he knew they wouldn’t go near the oven like he’d asked. He took them off the island stools in case they fell off trying to get down themselves and then rushed upstairs to his son.
He opened Misha’s bedroom admiring again the giant cartoon bear that Ilya had asked Luca to paint on the wall when they were still waiting for Misha to be born, a little ode to Ilya’s old Boston team he supposed. Or maybe Ilya had always wanted bears on his bedroom wall as a child himself.
Shane rushed over to his little boy and cradled him in his arms, his own mini Ilya. Really, it was uncanny how much they looked alike for two people who weren’t actually related by blood. Misha had the same blonde curls and blue eyes. Shane loved that all his children had curls. Ilya thought it was a little weird how obsessed Shane was with the whole curls thing, but he couldn’t talk considering how obsessed he was with Shane’s freckles and how he inspected their children’s face every morning to see if they had sprouted their own little constellations yet.
“There there Mishka,” Shane consoled. Apparently, Mishka also meant ‘little bear’ which Shane thought was adorable when Ilya had explained it to him.
Once Misha had calmed down and wasn’t crying anymore, he carried him downstairs to where the girls had migrated to the living room floor to do some colouring. Shane sat with them and told them what a good job they were both doing.
Alina stood up quickly so she could reach over and give her brother a hug and a kiss on the head, like she always saw her dads do. “Does Mish Mish want to colour too?” she asked more to Shane than her brother considering he very much wasn’t at the talking stage yet.
“OH! He can use one of my crayons!” Mila said already handing over a purple one.
“He might be a little too young to colour just yet girls, but I know he’s excited to have his older sisters teach him how when he can,” Shane explained as Misha grabbed the crayon in his vice like grip and started shaking his arm around.
After some more time colouring in, the timer on Shane’s phone went off and he left Misha on the floor with the girls for a moment as he rushed to the oven to grab the cake. He carefully pulled it out and left it on a rack to cool.
“Is it time to decorate daddy?” Alina asked when Shane returned.
“Not yet Yu Yu, we have to wait for it to cool down first okay.” So, the girls went back to their colouring and even handed Shane a page to colour in too. He actually quite enjoyed it, always finding it strangely therapeutic and he felt a little giddy himself when Alina pointed out how good he was at colouring in the lines.
Shane had spent so much of his life always feeling a little on edge, even as a child himself. He had never really felt like he fit in and had struggled to make friends when he was younger. He was smart but school had never felt like the right place for his kind of smartness. He struggled to comprehend the rules, and the teachers never told him why things had to be done a certain way, only that he was simply to listen, which did not suit him at all. For someone so mild-mannered as an adult, at least when he wasn’t in the vicinity of his husband, people would be surprised to learn how much trouble he got into at school, at least in kindergarten and elementary. From middle school onwards he’d learnt to just keep his mouth shut; he focused on hockey; it didn’t matter if he didn’t have many friends; his grades were passing.
Having children now was healing parts of him he had never even realised was broken, having pushed it down so deep inside him that he forgot they were even there.
After some more time had passed, Shane figured the cake was probably sufficiently cool enough to finally decorate. He dragged the highchair from the dining table to the kitchen island and placed Misha inside before helping the girls get back onto their stools. He’d bought ready-made icing and they already had sprinkles, and all kinds of other things he thought the girls would enjoy throwing at the cake, from previous baking extravaganzas. He helped them a little bit, like writing the ‘we love you’ for them to trace over but otherwise let them get on with it.
There really was a giant mess by the end and he’s even given Misha some icing to squeeze and play with in his highchair, but it was a wonderful sight to him. Shane would, of course, freak out at least a little bit when he started the mammoth task of cleaning this all up, but for now he was content to watch his children be happy and enjoy themselves.
Once the decorating was all done, Shane let the girls run off to watch some TV but kept Misha in his highchair as he began to at least put some things away in the dishwasher and pack away all the cake decorating material that would keep for next time.
“Shane!” a voice sang from the hallway. “Girls! I’m home!”
“Pappy!” he heard the girls shout back before little footsteps could be heard running down the hall.
“Hello! My wonderful, beautiful, little gremlins!” Shane heard Ilya respond as he without a doubt reached down and scooped each girl into each arm. “And what have you both been up to today?”
“We made cake!” Mila said giving away the secret immediately. Shane smiled fondly and shook his head. Well, he knew the surprise was never going to take long to get out, so he shoved some of the mess to the other kitchen counters so Ilya would see only the cake on the island when he walked in.
“Cake? Where? For who? I want some,” Ilya replied right away before his footsteps could be heard as he rushed into the kitchen, sure enough with both of the girls in his arms.
“It’s for you anyway,” Shane replied fondly as soon as he caught eyes with his husband.
“Is for me?” Ilya asked as he deposited the girls back onto the stools and reached over to give Misha a kiss on the head, all the while side eyeing both the cake and Shane.
“Yes, for you,” Shane reiterated as Ilya finally joined his side and gave him a peck on the lips.
“What for?” Ilya asked.
Shane shrugged, “No reason.”
“It’s a ‘I Love You’ cake pappy. Reason is because we love you. That’s what daddy said before,” Alina said making Shane blush and a little shy as Ilya looked down at him fondly. Sometimes his husband made him feel like a teenager with a crush that had just been caught out. He hoped that feeling would never go away.
“The girls helped decorate,” Shane explained as Ilya took in the cake properly for the first time and read the words written on top in pink glitter icing.
“I see that,” Ilya said with a snort that he quickly covered up with a, “Because look how good it looks! You girls did this?” Ilya asked feigning shock.
The girls nodded enthusiastically and Shane brought out some plates while Ilya continued to gush about how their daughters were little artists.
“So, you will both help me eat the whole thing, yes?” Ilya asked like it was a very important mission.
“Uh nyet,” Shane said interrupting immediately. “No one is finishing the whole thing today. You can all have a piece each now and then another one after dinner for dessert and that’s it.”
He could tell where the girls learnt the whole pout with their arms crossed manoeuvre when he watched all three parties do it in synch in that exact moment.
“Not fair,” Ilya said, pout still evident. “Is my cake.”
“Don’t care,” Shane responded simply before cutting it up into slices and putting one each of their plates. Shane did at least give Ilya a much bigger piece than the girls.
“Oh my God Shane, this is second best thing I have ever tasted,” Ilya moaned as he took his first bite. The girls were too busy with their own slices to pay attention to anything else anymore.
“Only second best? What’s the first?”
“Cannot say in front of such young ears,” Ilya whispered with a wink.
Shane tried to hide his blush with a scowl, but he wasn’t sure that it worked when Ilya smirked and looked him up and down.
Ilya then lifted his fork to Shane’s mouth. “Have a bite,” Ilya encouraged.
“Oh, no I’m okay.”
“Shane.”
“I’m going to have a slice after dinner, I promise.”
“Well, that is good, but you will also have a bite now.”
“Ilya I-”
“-just one bite. Please.”
Shane sighed and took the bite off Ilya fork. He had to admit, he had outdone himself. It was an absolutely delicious cake, but he really would have to wait until dinner to have anymore.
_____
Later, Shane and Ilya were lying in bed after the kids had been put to bed a few hours prior.
“Thank you for cake,” Ilya said as their naked chests were pressed together. They had just been cuddling and watching something on TV when Ilya’s hands had started roaming and his lips started leaving gentle kisses along Shane’s neck and shoulder. “You take such good care of me.”
“You take good care of me back,” Shane said sighing into Ilya’s touch.
“Mmm in more ways than one, yes?”
“Mhmm.”
“You want me to take care of you now? Or too tired?”
“Fuck Ilya, no not tired. Need you. Please.”
And just as Ilya groped Shane’s ass over his boxers, the baby monitor went off with Misha’s cries yet again. Both men groaned as they slumped back on the bed.
Shane made to get up when Ilya grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. “I will do it,” he said getting up himself. “He probably does not want me, but I will try to calm him.”
“Hey, he loves you,” Shane said, as was always his response when Ilya made any sort of notion about Shane being Misha’s favourite.
“Yes sweetheart, I know, but you are still his favourite right now. Don’t worry, when he is older, I have plans of changing that,” Ilya said with smirk.
Shane rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Come get me if he doesn’t calm down.”
Shane had planned to stay awake so he could still try and have his way with his husband tonight when he came back to bed, but as is the life of a parent, he was far too tired, and his eyes drifted off into a deep slumber within minutes.