I felt really bad for what had happened with the Moyashi that night. Yes, it was technically all Komui's fault for saying that he'd talked to Allen when he hadn't, but I still felt like crap over my role in it.

It literally felt like I had raped my husband.

The Moyashi was so radiant and beautiful, and at six months pregnant, he was exactly what I pictured as the perfect sexual partner. It hurt me that I had hurt him. And that was new. We'd been together for years and I had never before cared about whether or not I was hurting him; in fact, we had even occasionally had sex that was so rough we were deliberately trying to hurt each other. It was weird that I suddenly felt bad for causing him pain. I knew that some of that concern was because he was pregnant, which made him more fragile, and some came from the fact that we were married now, which, despite what he might have said, did mean that he belonged to me, but I was at a loss as to where the rest of it came from. I didn't think that I loved the Moyashi that much.

And it definitely didn't help that he was so forgiving of the whole thing. He didn't get scared of me or mad at me; he continued to climb in bed with me every night, smiling and laughing as he joked about being fat and taking up all of the bed space.

After about a week of keeping my feelings to myself, I had had enough of driving myself crazy with wondering what was going on in the Moyashi's head. The final straw came one night when he curled up in bed beside me with a book. The normalness of the action was so disturbing that I had to confront him. "Why aren't you mad at me?"

"Hmm?" He questioned me calmly and without moving his head from my shoulder. "Why would I be mad at you?"

The innocence in his voice bothered me. He truly had no clue what I was talking about, and that was not acceptable when guilt had been eating me alive for the last week. "Because of what happened the other night. I basically raped you, yet you're acting like nothing happened. Why aren't you mad at me for what I did?"

There was a tense moment of silence while I waited for the Moyashi to react. I was expecting him to finally blow up at me, so it was a bit anticlimactic when all he did was sigh. "Oh. That."

Allen sighed again, much more wearily this time, and put his book aside. When he turned back to me, he took my hand in his and squeezed it tightly; it was his way of making sure that I wouldn't run away before he finished talking. "I am mad at you over what happened that night, but not about that. You'd been told that I knew it was coming. It's not your fault that that wasn't actually the case."

He paused to wince, moving my hand to his belly so that I could feel our child kicking. It was a wonderful feeling, but it did little to put my mind at ease. Allen then placed his free hand on my cheek and guided me into looking him in the eyes. "No, what upsets me is that you didn't even notice that I was trying to stop you. I think I even bit you at one point, but all trying to make you stop did was spur you on. And that can't happen again. I'm pregnant. If I'm trying to stop the sex, it's because it's painful or something's wrong. You need to be paying enough attention to be able to hear me when I ask you to back off."

I didn't know how to respond to that. Not only was it not what I thought he would say, but it was an incredibly valid point. I truly should have been listening to him during sex.

"It's kind of fun to see you feeling guilty over this, Yuu." The Moyashi's serious look briefly contorted into a smirk with those words, but then he let out a wistful sigh and went back to being serious. "There have been so many times that I've wished to hear you express regret for the way you've treated me, and I thought I'd die before that happened. Yet here we are, and you've actually said out loud that you feel like you raped me. I both love and hate that you feel bad. It means so much to me that you're actually taking our marriage seriously. You've grown so much in the last three years."

I made a face at the sideways compliment, but Allen didn't give me the chance to object to the sentimental garbage he was spewing. He leaned in and kissed me before I got a single syllable out. "I'm six months pregnant with your child, Yuu. I don't like being mad at you, and I don't like being the reason you feel bad. So, let's make a deal: apologize for not listening to me and promise to do better in the future, and I'll forgive you for raping me."

"Couldn't you have said that without the sappy speech?"

He smirked at me again. "Nope."

"You're such a dork, Baka Moyashi." I rolled my eyes, loving the way he pouted at the comment.

Pulling his hand off my cheek, I placed it on his baby bump with our other hands. Then I closed my eyes and leaned in so that our foreheads were touching. "As much as I hate to admit it, you do have a point. Things have changed in the last month, and I do need to get better at listening to your needs. After all, if I had stopped when you asked me to, I wouldn't be feeling like I raped you. So yes, I am honestly sorry that I didn't listen, and I promise that I will try to be more aware in the future. The last thing I want is to hurt you again."

The silence that followed was filled with a few sniffles that I knew were the Moyashi trying to keep himself from crying. He threw his arms around me and pulled us even closer together than we already were. It was annoying, but at the same time, if I had known that sharing a bed would make him more affectionate, I'd have started doing it long before we learned about the baby.

Because of our closeness, I felt the lone tear roll down Allen's cheek. "Thank you, Yuu."

He paused for a moment and then said something that he hadn't said before. "I love you."

I had known for a long time that he felt that way about me, but actually hearing him say those three words like that felt really good. "I love you too, Allen."

.x.x.

July and August were hell for Allen. The seventh and eighth months of his pregnancy were accompanied by record-breaking heat. Being pregnant made Allen especially sensitive to the temperature, and he could often be found just reclining against the stone walls in the cooler lower levels of headquarters.

He had even taken to wearing sundresses; the need to cool down from the torturous heat took precedence over his modesty and male pride. Months later, he would be mortified by the memory of the way the thin fabrics clung to his sweat-soaked body. The flimsy dresses showed off every inch of his growing belly, and left very little of his budding bust to the imagination: the entire Order now knew that he had breasts. But the others were almost as miserable as he was, so they ignored his immodest state; in fact, most were jealous of his pregnancy, wishing that they too had a legitimate reason to be wearing next to nothing.

During all this, Allen had a real problem with staying hydrated. He drank constantly to keep himself cool and replace what he was sweating out, but the baby had found his bladder, and she loved to kick it at the most inopportune moments. It felt like he spent all his time in the bathroom.

The biggest relief for Allen was that the baby was still craving her father's favorite foods. Soba practically saved his life during the heatwave. He couldn't eat cooked foods, not without feeling like he was boiling alive, and that left him constantly hungry. But the cold Japanese noodles were a godsend. They filled him up and cooled him off at the same time. And the best part was that they made the baby happy. She actually left his bladder alone after he fed her soba.

Kanda couldn't stand the heatwave for completely different reasons from everyone else. He actually didn't mind the temperature, his artificial body protected from such things. But then there was Allen...

His husband was literally glowing with the life growing inside him. His constantly sweat-soaked skin glistened, and the droplets pooled in his growing cleavage, which was left exposed by the low cut dresses he had taken a liking to wearing. And it all hit Kanda straight in his pregnancy fetish.

He wore his exorcist jacket tied around his waist, not to avoid the heat like everyone thought, but to hide the fact that he was almost constantly erect when he was around Allen. There were times, especially after sitting and enjoying a meal with his Moyashi, that he actually couldn't stand up because his pants were too tight. In times like that, he had to send Allen away in order to get his body to calm down. The pregnancy making the Moyashi like soba did a number on his libido.

The torture was totally worth it though. Because when Allen wasn't complaining about the heat, he was complaining about being horny. And the Moyashi having an increased sex drive was the icing on the cake for Kanda.

Their encounters were always brief, it was too damn hot for Allen to tolerate anything other than a quickie, but that just meant they could do it several times a day. If either of the young men were in the habit of bragging about their sexual prowess, like a certain redhead was, the entire Order would have known that they had sex as often as five times a day, every day.

But Allen especially was too reserved for that. He was mortified by the pregnancy hormones affecting his libido. Not just because they were making him horny, but by the way in which they did it. He didn't just want Kanda: he needed Kanda's cock inside his vagina. And that was beyond humiliating for someone who still thought of himself as male.

If Allen's relief came in the form of cold noodles, Kanda's came in the form of missions. Being continuously aroused was stressful on his body. And it wasn't good sex either. Between the oppressive heat, the raw need, and Allen's constantly growing belly, it often felt more like their awkward first time than like they'd been together for years. The occasional day or two away from headquarters (Komui refused to send him on longer missions after Allen's breakdown) was just what the samurai needed to relax and recover between rounds.

Then September came. And with it: the end of the heatwave. But as the air and the people cooled down, Allen only grew more miserable. Now that he was no longer drowning in his own sweat, he was able to take stock of just how much his body had changed. And it was a good thing that he was desperately in love with his unborn baby, because otherwise those changes would have made him want to kill himself.

His pregnant belly was littered with stretch marks. They snaked across the surface of the mound, which was now so large that he looked due, despite still having five weeks of his pregnancy left to go. The sheer size of his belly made it hard to believe that he was once in danger of losing his baby from being underweight.

Allen's belly wasn't the only part of his body that had put on weight. His ass was round and full, his thighs were plump, and his hips had spread to a decent child-bearing width. Even his face had taken on a rounder shape from all the water he was retaining.

His breasts had finally stopped growing, causing Lenalee to attack him with a tape measure. The Chinese woman then spent the rest of the week complaining that his were bigger than hers. Her behavior annoyed him, but not nearly as much as the mounds that hung from his chest and perched on his belly did. Allen prayed that Komui was wrong and the obnoxious things would go away once they'd served their purpose.

In the meantime, he would just have to ignore the fact that he now looked like a woman. Once he had gotten over the initial shock of seeing himself like that, Allen was able to see that there was no point in freaking out over the changes to his body until after the baby was born; with five weeks of his pregnancy left, things were only going to get worse. He just wished that he was still unaware of his body's changes.

There was, however, one change that he definitely did not mind. For the first time in his life, Allen was bigger than Kanda. It was an even more enjoyable change given that he had been told that the pregnancy hormones would shrink his dick; having it grow was a pleasant surprise. He occasionally teased Kanda about being small, but the samurai really didn't mind; he was just glad that there was an aspect of his pregnancy that the Moyashi actually enjoyed.

When Lenalee had recovered from her griping, she began dragging Allen to town every chance she got. Now that her heavily pregnant friend actually looked like a woman, it was safe to take him shopping. Allen was not exactly thrilled with being out in public in his current state, but shopping for things for his daughter made it worth it. They bought toys and clothes, and finally furnished the nursery, which had been sitting empty for the last three months.

Everything was now ready for the baby's arrival. All that was left was for her to actually come into their lives.