A/N: As always, thanks for the reads, reviews, favorites, and follows! I hope you're all doing well!

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It took several hours, but they managed to explain what had happened in a way that satisfied General Teidoll, and both young men were emotionally exhausted by the time he finally left them alone. Deciding that they were both done dealing with other people for the day, they headed back to their room for an early bedtime.

Kanda watched with hungry eyes as Allen changed into his pajamas, but in the end, he elected not to start anything. He was stressed and exhausted from dealing with Teidoll, and he didn't want to use the Moyashi for stress release, at least, not until their relationship was much more stable. He was certain that Allen would see right through his desires, and he didn't want to risk setting the boy off and losing the progress he'd made. So he changed and climbed in bed next to his husband without touching him. "Goodnight, Moyashi. I love you."

Beyond a grunt of acknowledgement, the words typically received no response, and Kanda was fine with that - he didn't want Allen to say that phrase unless he actually meant it - so he did what he always did and flicked off the light before getting comfortable for sleeping. Tonight, however, Allen spoke up once the light was out. "Kanda, I-"

He paused to collect himself, driving Kanda crazy over wondering what he was going to say. "I care about you."

Those words shocked Kanda to the core. The last time they had discussed their feelings, which had only been a few hours earlier, Allen had been stuck on trying to accept that Kanda's feelings were genuine, and he'd been stuck there for quite a while. Kanda had begun thinking that it might not even be possible for Allen to understand that he was loved. Yet, here he was now, declaring that he had feelings for him. And those feelings were clearly genuine. Maybe it wasn't going to be as impossible as he thought to actually get Allen to fall in love with him.

Before Kanda could collect himself enough to speak, Allen continued talking. He meant what he had said, but he felt like he needed to explain before Kanda took the words the wrong way. He needed to make sure that the samurai knew that he had intentionally avoided using the word 'love' to describe his feelings. "I don't love you, but this is where I belong. This is how things were meant to be. I belong at your side."

"Moyashi-" Kanda could tell that Allen was having a hard time getting his words out, and he didn't want the boy to force himself to share his feelings out loud, so he tried to interrupt, but Allen continued to talk.

Allen knew that Kanda was trying to let him off the hook, but he needed to finish saying what he was trying to say. "I know that I've already told you that I no longer want a divorce, but I think that the opposite is finally true: I want to be married to you."

Kanda felt his jaw drop to the ground. The Moyashi wanted to be his husband. That was a completely unexpected change of heart. He didn't want to push the issue, but Kanda found himself giving in to his curiosity. "Does that mean that you're finally ready to tell people that we're together?"

"Of course not." Allen rolled his eyes at the stupidity of the question, but he snuggled closer to his husband so that he wouldn't get the wrong idea. "Telling people about our marriage means telling them that I'm pregnant. And that is definitely not something that I want to do. You may be understanding about the whole situation, but there's no way that the others are going to accept that I don't want the baby growing inside me. And I have no desire to have them start prying into my life like they're inevitably going to do in their attempts to make me change my mind."

While he'd been initially hurt by the Moyashi's refusal to make their relationship public, Kanda could only concede that his reasoning was sound. "You're right. It's bad enough that Lenalee and Teidoll know that, there's no need for everyone else to know it too."

Allen was caught so off-guard by the words that his next question just popped out. "You're not going to argue with me?"

Kanda raised an eyebrow at the Moyashi, wishing he could see the boy's expression clearly in the dark. "Why are you so surprised? I've told you several times that I want you to learn to love us at your own pace, and that's not going to happen if everyone knows that you're pregnant. I don't want the others to meddle in our personal business any more than you do."

To Kanda's surprise, Allen practically fused himself to his side following the explanation. The Moyashi cried into the embrace for a few minutes, and by the time he managed to collect himself, Kanda's shirt was stained with tears. Yet, when he stopped crying, Allen didn't pull away. He relaxed in the samurai's arms and they found themselves in a position that could only be described as cuddling. "Thank you for understanding, Yuu."

The use of his first name made Kanda freeze. His gut reaction was to chew the Moyashi out for using it without permission, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of his, willingly married, husband using his first name. "You're welcome, Allen."

Those words made Allen start crying again. The samurai's first name had been said on accident, but the fact that Kanda hadn't responded with anger and had instead given him unspoken permission to continue using it was overwhelmingly meaningful.

Kanda scoffed at the Moyashi's reaction. "Just don't get any bright ideas, ok?"

Allen nodded through his tears. "I understand. It's only for when we're alone together and never to be used in public."

Kanda tousled his hair like he was a child. "Good Moyashi."

Choosing to ignore the insult, Allen changed the subject. "Hey, Yuu?"

Following the samurai's grunt of acknowledgement, Allen pressed on. "You know, the more you open up to me, the more I'm convinced that you are going to be a great father. If you can be as protective and loving towards your child as you are becoming of me, you'll be a wonderful parent."

Considering that they'd really only been in a real relationship for about twenty minutes, Allen sure knew how to hit Kanda right in his insecurities. But the Moyashi didn't press the issue. Instead of forcing Kanda to talk about his feelings, he chose to snuggle closer. "Goodnight, Yuu."

.x.x.

The next few days were the smoothest days Allen had experienced since he'd learned that he was pregnant. Things between him and Kanda were better than they'd ever been and there was no one pestering him about their relationship or his feelings towards his pregnancy. But that all changed when Lenalee returned from her latest mission.

She immediately sought out Allen and cornered him in the lounge he used for privacy. "So? How's it going?"

Allen knew exactly what she was asking, but he'd had more than enough of talking about his feelings lately, so he chose to play stupid. "How's what going?"

Lenalee had to resist the urge to smack the pregnant boy for being willfully ignorant. "It's been a month, Allen. How are things going with Kanda?"

Knowing that the quickest way to end this conversation was to tell her what she wanted to hear, Allen tried to come up with a way to tell her as little as possible. "I will admit to liking sex. Everything else is private and none of your business."

His tone made Lenalee frown. "Ok, I suppose that's fair. But have you really slept with him or are you just saying that to get me to back off?"

Allen snorted in annoyance and popped open the top buttons of his shirt, exposing his neck and shoulders, which were covered in hickeys. "Satisfied?"

Lenalee went bright red with embarrassment as she realized that the red marks she was seeing on her friend's body were marks Kanda had made during sex. "That's too much information, Allen."

Allen rolled his eyes as he fixed his shirt. "You should have thought of that before you accused me of lying about sex." He smirked as he suddenly realized why she'd reacted the way she had; he now knew exactly what to say to make her leave him alone. "For the record, Kanda is fabulous in bed. When we're naked together and he touches me in just the right spot-"

Realizing where he was going, she clapped a hand over his mouth to make him stop. "Please stop talking."

That mortified look on her face was the exact reaction he wanted to get out of her, so Allen closed his mouth and let her continue, not at all surprised that her next words were an attempt to excuse herself politely. "I just got back from my mission, so I've got other things to do. We'll have to discuss this later, ok?"

Allen hid a triumphant smirk as he nodded and Lenalee immediately bolted from the room. While he was initially elated to have found a way to get Lenalee off his back, he sobered as he realized that he'd really only bought himself a few days. It wasn't going to be long at all before she got over her queasiness towards sex, and then she was actually going to want to hear those details that he'd just tried to scare her with.

In fact, Allen hadn't even bought himself a full day. It was just two hours later that Lenalee had collected herself enough to face him again.

Allen was harder to find this time around, but that was because Lenalee didn't think that he'd actually be in Kanda's bedroom, despite knowing that he'd turned in the keys to his own bedroom earlier that week. But that was where she found him. And a rather grouchy Kanda.

The samurai glared death at her when he answered the door. "He's asleep."

Lenalee didn't believe him for a second, not when he was acting so defensive about it, so she pushed past him and stepped into the room. Of course, what she saw was Allen, asleep in bed.

"Satisfied?" Kanda rolled his eyes at her as he returned to his chair and picked up his book, using it to hide a smirk at the way the Moyashi was so obviously only pretending to be asleep. Not that he blamed him for that. He didn't want to deal with Lenalee either.

Lenalee groaned in frustration. "Of course, he's asleep. Figures."

She turned to leave, but as she moved, a thought struck her. Allen was asleep in Kanda's bed. Kanda, who was an extremely private person and didn't let anyone into his personal areas, was letting Allen sleep in his bed. And he was sitting there, in the same room, like he was watching over him. She had been so focused on Allen and his feelings towards their marriage that it had never even occurred to her just how out of character Kanda had been acting.

Turning back to face Kanda, Lenalee confronted him with her observations. "Can I ask you a question?"

Not waiting for a response, she forged ahead. "He's having a terrible time adjusting to what happened, but you're perfectly calm, like this is all, somehow, normal. You went from hating him to being in love with him on the spot. What changed?"

Seeing that Allen had perked up at the question, Kanda chose to answer it truthfully. While he didn't particularly want to be having this conversation with Lenalee, he did want the Moyashi to know the answer. "I don't really know. When he told me he was pregnant, it was like everything just suddenly made sense. I'd been fighting my feelings for him for years, and what happened on that mission had only made things worse. But then I learned that we were having a baby and all that conflict was gone. In that moment, I realized that I wanted nothing more out of life than to be with the Moyashi and have children together."

Lenalee didn't really know what to say in response to that. She hadn't expected Kanda to be so forthcoming with his feelings. "If only it could be that easy for him."

Kanda rolled his eyes at the stupidity of the comment. "It should be harder for him. He's the one who actually has to carry the baby inside his body. It would be weird if he were miraculously ok with being pregnant and having to get married. He needs time to work through it all and decide what he really wants."

"But what about what you want?"

With that question, it suddenly clicked for Kanda that the reason Lenalee had been so annoying lately was because she had her priorities wrong; she was trying to protect him instead of looking out for Allen. And that was something he needed to fix. "It's more than good enough for me that he's decided to stop fighting what's happened. So leave him alone. He needs a friend not a ... whatever it is you're trying to be. You should be helping him learn about pregnancy and babies, not nagging him about his feelings for me. Got it?"

It took a second to process what he was saying, but once she understood, Lenalee felt incredibly stupid. "Oh. Right. I've been going about this all wrong, haven't I?"

Kanda merely snorted in response, so she continued. "When Allen wakes up, will you tell him that I'm sorry for pushing him? And tell him I'll meet him in the library after dinner if he wants some help finding pregnancy books to read."

Kanda chuckled slightly. "I'm sure he'll be there."

Lenalee smiled. "Thanks, Kanda."

With the door closed firmly behind her, Kanda addressed Allen. "She's gone, you can get up now."

"Of course you knew that I was awake." Allen grumbled as he pushed himself up into a seated position. But then he decided to change the subject. "Hey, Yuu? When you were talking earlier, you said 'children'. You want to get me pregnant again, don't you?"

Kanda sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, brushing his fingers into the Moyashi's white hair. "I don't know, Moyashi. It just sort of slipped out. Yes, I can see us having more than just this one baby, but I'd also be fine if this is the only baby we have. I'm in no hurry to knock you up again. Besides, whether or not we have more kids is your decision alone. You've already been forced into carrying one baby, your second pregnancy should be your choice."

The words made Allen frown. "You know, if you were this compassionate and understanding in public, we wouldn't be in this mess. I probably would have fallen for you years ago if I knew that this was what was hiding beneath all that anger and sarcasm."

"Don't be sappy, Moyashi."