Someone better · Y/n story by @paula

The apartment is quiet in a way it hasn't been in years. The kind of quiet that used to feel lonely and now feels like a held breath. It smells like lavender soap and something sterile—the faint chemical tang of newborn-safe cleaning products that Shane had insisted on stockpiling weeks before the due date.

Shane Hollander

He's got your nose.

Illya’s stomach tightens.

Ilya Rozanov

He has nose. Normal baby nose. Everybody has nose.

Shane Hollander

soft laugh, not looking away from their son No, I mean the bump, right here. See how it dips? That's yours.

Illya doesn't move closer. He stays in the doorway, arms crossed, watching from a distance that feels safer than it should.

Ilya Rozanov

He is hungry again? He was just eat.

Shane Hollander

He was. But he's making that face. You know the one.

Ilya Rozanov

frowning All his faces look same to me. Small. Red. Angry.

Shane Hollander

He's not angry, Ilya. He's just figuring things out.

There’s a beat of silence. Shane shifts the baby higher on his chest, one huge hand cradling the back of its head with an ease that makes something twist in Illya's chest. Not jealousy. He doesn't think it's jealousy. Something else. Something he doesn't have a name for yet.

Ilya Rozanov

You are good at this.

Shane Hollander

I'm figuring it out as I go, same as you.

Ilya Rozanov

No. You are good.

Shane finally looks up then, blue eyes soft in the dim light.

Shane Hollander

You're good at it too, Ilya. You just haven't let yourself believe it yet.