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Shane never had a chance to greet Hayden or Jackie before being attacked.
“Where’s the baby!” Amber demanded, wrapping her arms around Shane’s waist and hanging off of him.
Ruby and Jane waited a little bit behind, laughing at Amber.
“Supper first, then baby,” Shane told Amber.
“What! No!” Ruby protested.
“Can we see her now uncle Shane?” Jade asked hopefully.
Shane tried to shimmy away from Amber and into the kitchen. “She’s sleeping.”
Ruby and Jade stopped him in his tracks, wrapping two more sets of arms around his neck.
Arthur went straight for Ilya. He was wearing a wide gap-tooth smile and squaring his fist. Ilya raised his fist back, his eyes widening in faux shock.
“You want to fight?” Ilya asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Arthur didn’t answer, just mimicking Ilya’s bouncing and smiled even wider.
Ilya threw the first blow. He sent his fist for Arthur's stomach, very dramatically playing it up without actually coming anywhere close to the kid. Arthur hit back, his small fists coming to bump Ilya’s stomach.
Ilya sent himself back, crying out as if hurt. Arthur sent his fists up, both trying (and failing) to hit Ilya’s chin. Ilya sent his neck back, falling dramatically on the couch and staying there with his eyes closed.
Through the cloud of pleading, Shane watched Arthur laugh as he climbed up on the couch to shake Ilya awake.
“I am dead. You killed me,” Ilya mumbled, letting the kid shake his shoulders.
Arthur didn’t back down. The less Ilya talked, the harder he shook, Ilya’s head flailing from side to side.
“I said I am dead,” Ilya said with more urgency. “You can not shake the dead out of someone.”
Arthur shook even harder, his grin growing.
Ilya gave up, raising his hands in defeat. “Okay, okay. I will get up.” He sat up and looked at Arthur like he was bored. There was no warning before he took the kid by the armpits, raising him up in the air and slamming him back down onto the couch, giggles erupting from Arthur.
“Ilya! Gentle!” Shane called through the continued bargaining. “Don’t hurt him,” he said, quieter, shaking the girls off and moving over towards the two boys on the couch.
Ilya shimmied Arthur further into the couch, stuffing him between the cushions and trapping him. “He is fine,” he shrugged, Arthur’s giggles backing his argument.
Ilya never got a chance to turn before he was ambushed by a swarm of arms. Two girls hung off his neck, and one wrapped around his waist, two legs locking around his own.
The couple only had a second to smile at each other before switching to give attention to the opposite children, Shane helping Arthur out of the cushions to ask him about skating, while Ilya shuffled off with the gaggle of youngsters attached to him.
“This is an attack!” he yelled dramatically, trying to wiggle away from them. “Where have you guys been? It feels like I haven’t seen you guys in years.”
“Where have YOU been?” a voice around his waist accused.
Ilya worked on pulling himself away from the girls, the two teens letting go easier than the other one. “Working.”
“You’ve been doing more than working,” Ruby accused.
Ilya pulled Amber off successfully. “I don’t know what you mean.” He sat on the stairs, the girls coming to sit around him.
“You’ve been busy,” Jane suggested.
“Yes, busy preparing food. We have guests, you know. Apparently, you need to feed those.”
“Where's the baby?” Amber demand.
Ilya furrowed his eyebrows. “Baby? What baby?”
“YOUR baby.”
Ilya’s hand flew to his stomach, his mouth dropping open in shock. “I had a baby? I do not remember this.” He stood and leaned over the rail to see Shane. “Shane? Did you have a baby?”
Shane shook his head from his place next to Arthur. “Not that I remember.”
“So… If I didn’t have a baby and you didn’t have a baby…” Ilya made a really dramatic show of thinking, stepping over the twins and hopping up the stairs.
He stepped into a room just at the top of the stairs, coming out a few seconds later. “Where did this come from?”
In his arms was a tightly wrapped blanket, a baby somehow still sleeping soundly inside. Ilya smiled at the girls, carefully moving down the stairs and sitting on the floor so they could see better. The girls all gathered around, smiling at her and saying silly things to her in a light voice.
“Can we hold her?” Jade asked tentatively, giving Ilya and the baby space.
Ilya gave her a sympathetic smile. “Er, not yet. In a few weeks, when she’s not so… breakable.”
Jade laughed and nodded, going back to admiring the baby.
Shane caught himself gazing lovingly at the group, quickly turning to Arthur to apologize for being boring. When he looked down, Arthur was staring too, smiling lightly at the baby and the girls around her.
“Do you want to go over and see?” Shane asked him.
He hesitated before nodding lightly, slowly creeping his way closer to sit next to Ilya.
Shane sat behind his husband, perfectly able to see his daughter and all of his nieces and nephew.
“What’s her name?” Arthur asked quietly, looking up at Ilya through his long lashes.
Ilya smiled down at him, moving slightly so he could see her better. “Lily.”