A/N: Well, in case the ending of the previous chapter didn't give it away, it's time to tell Lavi. And as always, thanks for the reviews, reads, favorites, and follows; it's nice to have support in these stressful times, and I appreciate you all.

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After four more days of looking for an Innocence fragment that clearly didn't exist, the three exorcists were finally given permission to cut their mission short and return home. In those four days, Lavi had watched his friends like a hawk, both waiting for the perfect opening to confront them and observing them further. Allen's unusual weight gain aside, the pair were indeed acting as strangely as they were when he first noticed the change in their behavior. They still shot insults towards each other, but they never once drew their weapons. However, more often than not, they were completely civil to the other, and Lavi had even caught them laughing together once. Stranger still was the way Kanda was behaving. The samurai was acting less annoyed than he usually did, and he actually seemed to be enjoying Allen's company. The weirdest thing though was how Allen was reacting to his nickname. He barely blinked when Kanda called him 'Moyashi', yet when Lavi used it, Allen flipped out and hit him so hard that it bruised.

The final straw came when they got on the train to head back to headquarters. They had joined up with Marie, who was also on his way home, but instead of taking the empty seat by his brother, Kanda elected to share a bench with Allen. Kanda chose to sit with Allen over sitting with the one person at the Order whom he actually liked. And to make it even worse, from the way Allen's smile brightened ever so slightly, it could only be interpreted that he wanted to sit with Kanda. Lavi felt like his head was about to explode.

In that moment, he was struck by just how young Allen looked.

Lavi couldn't recall how many times that Komui and Bookman had warned them that Allen wasn't going to live to see eighteen. The boy's parasitic Innocence was incredibly strong, and it was going to drain him fully before he reached adulthood, assuming that the war didn't kill him first. Yet, they didn't anticipate that he would awaken as a Noah, and not only would Allen be turning twenty at the end of the month, but he clearly had a long and healthy life in front of him. The true irony in the situation was that Allen's body had stopped aging, which meant that they were actually right about him never reaching eighteen.

Lavi normally didn't notice that Allen wasn't getting any older. Only a couple years had passed since the boy had stopped aging, and Lavi himself was still young enough that the difference didn't bother him. That probably wouldn't be the case in another five or ten years, but for right now, it was actually quite fun being noticeably older than Allen. Plus, there was the fact that Kanda had also stopped aging, and when the two of them were both around, it was much less noticeable that neither of them had aged a day in years.

But there, in that moment, it was painfully obvious that Allen was still a scrawny teenager when he should have been a full-fledged adult, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Lavi needed answers, and he needed them now.

Knowing that Allen and Kanda were going to try to avoid his questions, Lavi managed to wait until the train departed, as they were less likely to jump out the window of a moving train than a stationary one. Then he positioned himself in front of the compartment door, blocking their only other exit. They may still try to avoid his questions, but now they couldn't run away. He tried to speak calmly, but that was when he noticed that Kanda's hand was on Allen's knee, and in his shock, the question came out much harsher than he intended. "What the hell happened on your last mission together?"

Allen frowned. He knew what Lavi was really wanting to know, but that wasn't the question he had asked, and despite knowing that he needed to tell Lavi the truth now, he still wanted to make the redhead work for it. "We collected some Innocence from a shrine in Poland."

Lavi had to resist the urge to roll his eyes; that was his own fault for not being more specific with his question. "Not that mission. The one before it. And don't try to tell me that nothing happened. You both ended up in the infirmary afterwards, and ever since then, you've been acting really strange towards each other."

Allen sighed heavily, feeling Kanda give his knee a reassuring squeeze. He was going to have to do the talking, but Kanda was there to help him if it got too hard. "We were ambushed by a level three. It caught me by surprise with its attack, so I missed the rest of the fight. Kanda got rid of it, but not before it hit him too. But the effects of the attack didn't wear off once the akuma was gone, so we had to take care of it another way, and-"

Having had enough of the Moyashi's attempts to politely and tactfully explain what had happened, Kanda spoke up. They had agreed that since Allen was the pregnant one, he would do the explaining so that it would get told the way he wanted it to, but listening to him dance around the truth was painful. "We had sex."

Marie had only been half-listening to the conversation, as it was clearly none of his business, but that sentence captured his full attention. Lavi blinked at the declaration, turning a confused look on Allen, filled with worry for his young friend. That information, combined with the weight that the boy was gaining, could only mean one thing, and that thought was rather terrifying. "But you're a parasite-type."

Allen snorted in derision at the objection then immediately began to mope. "I wish I would have known that earlier."

Kanda spoke up once more, flicking Allen's ear. "It wouldn't have changed a damn thing, Moyashi."

Shoving his hand away roughly, Allen practically snarled in response. "I know that, Bakanda. But I still wish that someone would have told me."

Marie was quick to fill the silence before the pair could devolve into an argument. "I don't understand. Haven't you known for a long time now that your Innocence is parasitic?"

Allen frowned to hide his discomfort; at least the others weren't focusing on the fact that he'd had sex with Kanda. "Maybe. But what no one ever explained to me is that male parasite-types have female reproductive systems."

The explanation was something that Lavi already knew, but hearing Allen give it in this context only confirmed his fears. "So you are pregnant."

It took a lot more effort than Allen was willing to admit to keep himself from crying. "Unfortunately."

Lavi began to ask a question, but Allen cut him off as a rather distressing thought occurred to him. "Wait. You knew? You knew all along that I could get pregnant? How?"

Not understanding why Allen was so angry, Lavi shrugged and answered the question. "I came across it while I was doing some work for Bookman."

But that answer didn't appease Allen. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?! Why didn't you say something - anything - to warn me that this might happen?!"

Understanding now that Allen was upset because he hadn't been told that he could get pregnant until after he already was, Lavi did his best to explain his actions without angering the boy further. "Because, barring a situation like this, it was only important if you were gay, and you're clearly not-"

Allen cut Lavi off before he could finish. It hurt deeply that his smartest and most observant friend hadn't noticed that he was gay. "I've known since I was thirteen that I like men."

Kanda found himself speaking up once more. The hidden accusation in the Moyashi's declaration had hurt him too. Like Lavi, Kanda had also never noticed that Allen was gay, and things between them might have been very different if he had. "You haven't exactly been broadcasting that fact, Moyashi."

But Allen had an argument for that. "Lenalee's known for years, and I didn't tell her a thing. I assumed that you all either figured it out on your own like she did, or she told you; she's not exactly known for keeping her mouth shut."

This time it was Marie's turn to point out the flaws in his reasoning. "You're forgetting that Lenalee is also fiercely protective of her friends. She would never share anything that she thought might get you in the slightest amount of trouble, and this would have definitely gotten you in trouble."

The somber silence that settled over the group was quite uncomfortable, so Lavi took it upon himself to change the subject. "Are you keeping the baby?"

Allen snorted at the stupidity of the question. "I already told you: we found an Innocence fragment on our last mission together."

Lavi opened his mouth to argue with the stubborn Bean Sprout, but once he figured out what the comment really meant, his annoyance died in a heartbeat. It felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. "Your baby's an accommodator?"

Allen nodded at the raw horror on Lavi's face, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. The next thing he knew, he was in Kanda's lap. The samurai had him wrapped in a tight hug and was tenderly wiping away the stray tear that had fallen. Allen leaned into the embrace, drawing comfort from his husband. Seeing that the Moyashi was too upset to talk, Kanda spoke for him, answering Lavi's original question. "The Innocence won't let him abort the baby."

Allen grumbled under his breath at that. "Neither will the baby's father."

The comment was heard, but it took the others a bit to understand what it meant, and once they did, both Lavi and Marie felt like their eyes were going to pop out of their heads. Marie found his voice first, as unlike Lavi, he couldn't see the way that Allen and Kanda were embracing. "Are you actually saying that Kanda wants his baby?"

Kanda growled in annoyance, but before he could protest, Lavi interjected. "No, the better question is: why are you two touching each other like that? You're practically hugging. It's like you're... you're..."

Kanda snorted when Lavi fumbled over his words. "Like we're married?"

Allen rolled his eyes at the blank looks on the others' faces. "We're having a baby together. And since someone wants it, and we work for an organization with a whole lot of ridiculous rules-"

Kanda flicked his ear as he cut him off. "It's not ridiculous to expect two people to get married when they're expecting a child."

Allen just rolled his eyes once more. "It is when they're also declaring that one of those people is a different gender than they really are."

Before Kanda could concede that the Moyashi had a valid point, Lavi butt in. "Ok. Stop the bickering and explain things properly. You got attacked by an akuma and that somehow led to you two having sex together."

At their nods, Lavi continued. "I definitely want to know how that happened, but for right now, that's not important. The sex led to Allen getting pregnant, and that in turn led to the two of you getting married." They nodded again. "Ok, I guess that makes sense. What I don't understand is why you two are acting like you want to be married. Because that really only makes sense if you were together before this whole thing happened, but if that were the case, Allen wouldn't be so bitter about getting pregnant, so I'll repeat my earlier question: what the hell is going on with you two?"

Allen and Kanda shared a look, holding an unspoken argument, which Allen lost. He sighed and attempted to explain. "Look, Lavi, this all happened three months ago. I'm in my second trimester and we've been married for nine weeks. We've had plenty of time to get used to the idea that we are now stuck together for the rest of our lives."

The statement made sense, but Lavi's inner Bookman remained unsatisfied. They were still leaving something out, and he desperately needed to know what that was. "That's not the whole truth, is it? What is it that you're not telling me?"

The questions prompted Allen and Kanda to start bickering in a low whisper. Before they had ever decided to tell Lavi what happened, they had sat down and figured out what they were going to tell him and what they were going to keep secret, and Kanda's proposal was one of the many things that they had decided Lavi didn't need to know about. But now it was looking like they weren't going to get out of this without sharing the full story.

Marie couldn't make out what they were saying because they weren't talking in complete sentences, but he caught enough to finally understand what was going on. He had been listening intently to the conversation, remaining calm and reserving judgment until he was able to wrap his head around what was happening. He had gotten really good at reading Kanda over their years as apprentices, and he had known for a long time that the samurai had a crush on Allen. And given everything he'd just learned about their marriage and Allen's pregnancy, there could only be one thing that they were leaving out. "Kanda finally confessed, didn't he?"

Lavi burst out laughing at the softly spoken question. "Come on, Marie. Don't be ridiculous. There's no way-"

He choked on his own laughter when Kanda tilted Allen's chin up and kissed the boy on the lips.

Kanda was dying of embarrassment, and a sure-fire way to ease that embarrassment was to make his Moyashi feel embarrassed too; Allen was so adorable when he blushed that it instantly made him feel better. As Allen turned bright red and buried his face in the samurai's chest, Kanda was able to find the confidence to face Marie. "I did, but why did you say 'finally'? It wasn't until I learned that he was pregnant that-"

Marie laughed at Kanda's faked cluelessness. "Oh please. You've been in love with him since you met him."

While the statement made Allen feel warm and fuzzy inside, as he quite liked hearing someone else back up the claims that Kanda had been making, it shocked Lavi into silence and put Kanda on edge. "What on earth could possibly make you think that?!"

Marie laughed again. "It was something you said when you were telling Teidoll about your first mission with Allen. You said, and I quote, that you 'had to jump in and save his sorry ass'."

Kanda understood exactly what Marie meant by the comment, but he was mortified that the blind man knew him that well, so he feigned ignorance in an attempt to blow off the subject. "So?"

"So, when have you ever defended anyone in a fight? Never." Marie may not have seen it, but he still noticed the way Allen suddenly sat up straight with his eyes practically bugging out of his head; the surprise radiating off the boy was obvious. It was the reaction Marie was expecting to get, and it further proved that he was right about what he was saying. "Sure, you'll rescue Lenalee because you're scared of Komui, but you don't protect people unless you're ordered to. Yet, you defended Allen on your first mission together. And judging from his reaction just now, that definitely wasn't a one-time thing. Which means that he must be special to you."

Even though he knew that what Marie was saying was true, and that he really had been falling in love with Allen from the beginning, Kanda wasn't about to admit to that in front of anyone other than his Moyashi. "That doesn't mean that I was in love with him."

"Once I got you to admit to being gay, it did."

The words cut right through Kanda's stubbornness, and he practically collapsed in defeat. "Ugh. That's the reason Daisya suddenly decided that he needed to pester me about my sexual orientation? You put him up to it?"

Marie laughed. "I didn't put him up to anything. He's the one who wanted to take you to a brothel for your birthday. All I did was tell him just how stupid that idea was. The fact that he then had to get you to confirm that you were gay was just a bonus."

Before Kanda could decide if he believed Marie or not, Lavi burst out laughing. "Daisya wanted to take Kanda to a brothel?! Can you imagine what would have happened if he had?!"

Allen let out an unamused snort. "I imagine the same thing that happened when Cross did it to me."

Kanda raised an eyebrow at the question. "And what would that be?"

He shrugged, not catching the concern hidden in the question. "I punched him in the face and gave him the silent treatment until he apologized. Though you probably would have lasted a lot longer than three weeks without talking to Daisya."

"Moyashi..."

This time Allen caught the worry in Kanda's voice, so he tried to explain it a little better. "I was fourteen, and he didn't force me to do anything. That was the first and last time that I ever discussed my sexual orientation with Master Cross. Though, thinking about it now, it suddenly makes sense why he was so supportive of me wanting to wait for the right person. I wonder if he would have told me that I could get pregnant if he hadn't died when he did, or if he'd have kept that to himself like everyone else did."

The dark glare Allen shot his way was not missed, and Lavi had to suppress a shudder. Rather than acknowledging the comment, he decided that it was safer for his health to change the subject completely. "So, how does having sex land you in the infirmary?"