#darius ricci x mc

[littlemisswolfie]

does she know that my destiny lies with her?

AO3

Summary: Trips are made, conversations are had, and truths are revealed.

Two things are decided the next day during breakfast.

One: Darius won’t be rejoining the troupe for shows or missions until after the baby is born. There are a few reasons for this decision. For one, Darius is out of practice after a few months of being away. He needs to get his weight and muscles back to what they used to be for him to be safe. There’s also Kozholok to worry about; the less of a spectacle he makes of himself, the safer he, Yi, and the baby will be.

Two: Darius has to explain himself to Yi’s mother. This is mostly a Wrath decree, because she wants to keep the peace between the troupe and a woman who cooks for them once a week. “Plus,” she says, eyeing Darius’s hand on Yi’s knee, “I don’t think you want your child’s grandmother to hate you, right?”

Cal is obviously in the doghouse with the rest of the troupe members, but no one is openly hostile with him. They mostly just make him do menial tasks, like hand-washing the dishes after breakfast even though they have a dishwasher and Onyx asking him to do her laundry for her. It’s a very sibling-like dynamic, and, thankfully, Cal doesn’t seem too put out by all of it. Yi’s glad; she would hate for Cal to be alienated like that.

She’s not quite ready to forgive him for the things he said, but she doesn’t want him to suffer, either.

*

After breakfast, Yi finally shows Darius the nursery. It’s mostly an excuse to be alone together again, so when Darius is finished poking around, he sits in the rocking chair and pulls her into his lap. “When’s your next doctor’s appointment?” he asks her.

“This afternoon,” she says. “At two. Do you want to come with me?”

“Yeah. If you don’t mind.”

She cranes her neck to kiss his cheek. “Of course I don’t mind. I’d love for you to come.” Then she laughs and adds, “My doctor keeps pestering me about meeting you, actually. Her name is Dr. Rudy. I think you’ll like her.”

“After, we should go see your mom.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Wrath’s right. I need to clear the air with her before the baby comes.” His hand brushes her stomach again. “I just need to prove I’m going to do right by you.”

“She compared you to my dad,” Yi admits.

He winces. “The one who ran out on you?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

“Hey.” She cups his face and makes sure he looks at her. “You came back. That means a lot more than words ever could.”

He kisses her sweetly on the lips and they sit there in a comfortable bubble for a while longer. 

*

Dr. Rudy is indeed thrilled to finally meet the father of Yi’s baby. She can tell as soon as she walked into the exam room that Darius is The Boyfriend, because she’s never seen Yi look at her other friends like that. “I’m glad you got back before your little guy decided to make an appearance,” she jokes as she gets the sonogram machine up and running. “Everything’s going just fine. Ms. Cheng is having a perfectly normal, healthy pregnancy.”

Darius smiles and rubs Yi’s hand. “I’m glad.”

The sonogram appears on the machine, and there he is, their baby. Yi hears Darius’s gasp next to her. “Right now,” Dr. Rudy says, “he’s a little over a foot long. That’s a little small for thirty-two weeks, but nothing to be worried about.”

“Holy shit,” Darius says. His eyes are glued to the screen, where he can see their son moving around. 

She turns her head to smile at him. “That’s him,” she says. “That’s our baby.”

Darius squeezes her hand and says nothing, but she’s pretty sure he’s happy about it.

“You’ll be considered full term in five weeks,” Dr. Rudy says. “As long as you avoid too much stress and keep a healthy diet, I can’t see any complications that could arise between now and then.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Dr. Rudy casts an amused look in Darius’s direction. “I’m guessing you’ll want a sonogram picture.”

Yi laughs. “Yeah, I think so. Right, Darius?”

Darius just nods, and Dr. Rudy shakes her head and prints out the picture.

*

Darius drives them to the shop after her appointment. They have a copy of her most recent sonogram as a peace offering for her mom; Darius never said exactly what happened when he talked to her yesterday, and Yi can only hope her mom isn’t too angry.

They don’t get out of the Jeep as soon as he parks. Instead, he leans over to kiss her and says, “Let me talk to her alone.”

“Are you sure?” Yi asks.

He nods. “Her issue is with me. I won’t make you play mediator.”

“Alright.” She puts one hand over his and squeezes, and she can feel him relax a little at the contact. “I’ll stay in the shop, then. Just don’t take too long, okay? Otherwise I’ll think Mom killed you or something.”

“I think I can handle myself a little better than that.”

“You’ve obviously never met an angry Chinese mom, then.”

*

Yi, like she predicted, has to watch the shop while Darius and her mom talk in the apartment upstairs. Her mom had given him the stink eye when they walked in together but agreed to speak with him privately. So far, Yi can’t hear any shouting from upstairs, so she guesses the conversation is going well.

Some of the regulars are both surprised and thrilled to see her again. “Your mom said you had a bun in the oven,” says Gar, a rugged old man who had drawn a unicorn on her hot pink cast when she was four because she asked for it, “but I didn’t believe her!”

Yi ducks her head and blushes. “Guilty as charged,” she says, rubbing her stomach. “He’s moving around in there. Want to feel?” 

He does, and the baby kicks against his hand rather enthusiastically. Gar laughs. “That’s a strong little guy, huh?”

“Takes after his dad,” Yi says.

“What’s your guy do for a living?” Gar asks. “Your mom never said.”

“He’s a trapeze artist for the Night of Sin circus.” Gar looks skeptical, so she rushes to add, “It pays a lot better than it sounds, I promise. Tickets are over a thousand bucks a pop. We live in a penthouse over a casino. We have plenty of money.”

“I knew you were only with me for my money,” Darius’s voice says, and Yi turns around to see him coming out of the employee’s only door that really just hides the stairs to the apartment. His arms wrap as far around her middle as they can and he drops a kiss on her forehead. 

“Well,” she jokes, “what other good qualities do you have?”

“My dashing good looks, for one.”

“Whatever you say, babe.” Yi turns her head a little to look at Gar again. “Darius, I want to introduce you to Gar. He’s been coming here since I was a kid.”

Darius takes one hand off of Yi and extends it to shake one of Gar’s. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“So you’re the guy that got our little Yi knocked up?”

Yi knows Gar’s just joking, but Darius doesn’t, and Gar, at almost six feet tall and more muscle than fat, is an intimidating man. Darius winces. “Uh.”

“I haven’t been ‘little Yi’ since I was ten, Gar,” Yi protests.

Gar laughs. “You’re still ‘little Yi’ as long as you can’t reach the top shelf without a footstool.”

“That’s discrimination.”

“That’s facts.” Gar finally smiles at Darius, and Yi feels him relax against her. “It’s good to meet you, kid. How old’re you?”

“Twenty-nine. My birthday is at the end of July.”

“And Yi says you’re a trapeze artist?”

“One of the best.” Darius squeezes Yi’s hip. “I caught Yi out of a freefall the night I met her.”

“Because you singled me out of the crowd as a volunteer,” Yi fires back.

“I knew you’d have the balls if I dared you.”

“She’s always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie,” Gar says, humor evident in his voice. “One time when she was in middle school, she tried strapping fireworks to her bike to see if they would make it go faster.”

Darius lets out a shocked laugh and Yi scowls. “I broke my damn nose,” she says. “You should be more sympathetic to a pregnant woman, Gar.”

“Oh, come on, sweetheart! This is the first time you’ve liked a boy well enough to bring him around, and you went and got pregnant before you introduced us! I have a lot of embarrassing stories to catch him up on.”

The employee’s only door opens behind them again, and when Yi looks towards it, she sees her mother emerge. “Please stop harassing my daughter,” she says, voice light like it always is when she jokes with their regulars. “Unless you want me to tell the story of when Yi came to ask you for help with her period and you—”

“Ahhhh, nope! You awful woman, I’ll stop.”

“Good. Now buy what you need and get out, please. I’m closing up early today.”

*

Half an hour later finds Yi, her mom, and Darius all sitting in the living room of the apartment over the shop. Yi knows she should probably tone the PDA down a little around her mom, but she’s been separated from Darius for too long already, so she doesn’t pull away when he tugs her legs up and into his lap so he can rub her feet. She groans in appreciation. “Thanks, babe.”

Darius squeezes her knee with his free hand. “I could tell they were hurting. You kept shifting your weight downstairs.”

“Was I? I didn’t realize.”

“That’s why you have me around.”

Her mom clears her throat, and Yi jumps a little and turns her head to face her. “Oh! Sorry, Mom.”

“I already talked to Darius,” her mom says, crossing her arms, “but I’d like to hear your side of everything. Do you love him?”

That’s the easiest question in the world. “Yes.”

“And does he love you?”

Yi feels Darius stiffen under her, but she doesn’t waver. “Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he shows me with everything he does.” Yi squeezes his hand and feels him relax. “I know Darius like I know myself. He loves me, Mom, never doubt that.”

Her mom regards them both with a critical eye for a moment longer than is really comfortable and sighs. “Alright. I’ll give him a chance. Have you decided what name my grandson will have?”

Yi freezes up because, well, no, they haven’t talked about it, but Darius pipes up with, “I don’t really care about my name. It  has no real meaning to it. I’d like the baby to be a Cheng instead of a Ricci.”

“Are you sure?” Yi asks, a hand falling to her belly.

Darius presses a kiss to her temple. “I’m positive.”

*

When they’re done talking to her mom, she and Darius hop to the next building over to see Nahara.

Yi’s gut twists a little at the thought of seeing the seer again. Their last interaction wasn’t exactly positive, after all. But Wrath insisted. “Your baby is half demon, Yi,” she said. “You need to make sure it’s not going to hurt you.”

So Yi squeezes Darius’s hand and lets him lead her inside.

Nahara takes one look at them and almost combusts. Her hair whips around her like an angry cat’s tail and when she speaks, the air goes still. “Yi Cheng,” she says, “what is your father’s name?”

Yi and Darius both stiffen at the mention of her deadbeat dad, but Yi answers, “Bai. Bai Cheng.”

The crease in Nahara’s brow deepens and her frown widens. “I feared as such.” Suddenly looking very tired, she gestures to the sitting area of her shopfront, inviting them both to sit. Darius pulls Yi into his lap and she leans back against him, confused and worried. Why does Nahara know his name?

Nahara disappears through a door and returns with two cups of tea. The one she hands Yi smells of ginger, which would have been nice back when she was still vomiting every few hours, but she doesn’t say this. “Is something wrong?” she asks instead.

Nahara sighs. “I’ve had a suspicion for a while now,” she says, “and your child and your father have confirmed it.”

Darius tightens his hold on Yi as she shivers at the chilly tone in Nahara’s voice. “What do you mean?” His voice is stern. Protective. 

“It means that Yi is about as human as you are.”

And the world spins.

[optimajuliette]

[aquagirl1978]

Goodbye Sin With Me circus troupe - you will be missed!

[violettduchess]

[harlow-cas]

This is where we started...

...now we are here.

[lilbertha]

The way he just pops out of nowhere is the funniest thing to me for some reason 😂😂

God, I love these two weirdos

[remys-lucky-franc]

Ow - Sin With Me - Darius x MC (Suzi)

Can you do a story please for LI of your choice using the prompt “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?” Requested by @simpsonjenna1 - I’m sorry for how long it’s sat in my ‘to do’ bundle. I think it might be coming up on 6 months so I hope you still want to read it lol, I’m not fast, but I do get there in the end...

TW - I know people don’t like feet, so please note that this is about feet. Could have went for something demony, life-threatening angsty and dramatic, but nope, I’ve picked fluff and sore feet - LOL I’m an idiot 😆

Words 800

[MORE] [[MORE]]

“Oh my- Look at- Babe?! Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?!”

Suzi shrugs despondently as Darius holds her foot in his hand, gently shifting it around, shaking his head and trying to get good look at the utter mess Suzi’s new climbing boots had made of her feet,

“We were having fun, and you had been really excited about going, and it’s been ages since you’ve had a day off, and I didn’t want to ruin it.”

‘Can we go home? I’ve got sore feet.’ Sounded really lame, so Suzi had just sucked it up and ignored her blisters that felt like they were getting their own little blisters. And Suzi wasn’t going to say it out loud, but she had been more focused on watching Darius’s shirt ride up as he climbed, exposing those glorious, chiselled abs than she had been on the burning pain where her shoe was rubbing at her heel...

Darius looks appalled as he lets go of her left leg, picking up the right one and grimacing some more,

“Never do that again? Look at the state of your feet? Suzi...”

Suzi mumbles, embarrassed because she knows it was stupid, and now that she sees how bad they are, she can’t decide which she regrets more: her stupid bravery or her unquenchable thirst...

“Yeah... This is much worse than I thought it would be...”

Darius raises an eyebrow,


“Damn right, you’re not going to get proper shoes on either of those feet for a week...”

Suzi flops back onto the bed dramatically, only to have her wrist caught in Darius’ grip and pulled back up,

“Oh no. Let’s move...”

As Suzi gets to her feet she bites her lip.

“Ow. Ow!”

Every step hurts. How did she actually make it back? Darius takes pity on her after the third tentative step when she sharply inhales, hoisting her up into his strong arms, carrying her the rest of the way to the bathroom. She can’t make up her mind what’s better: being pressed tightly against Darius, or just not having to stand on her feet...? By the time she’s decided it was the former, Darius has sat her down on the edge of the tub, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. Suzi smiles into the warmth of him, her imagination starting to wander...

“Mmmmm. A bath sounds nice...”

Darius cheeks glow a little pink as he silences her with a slow, lingering kiss. Without breaking it, Darius reaches behind Suzi, running the tub a quarter of the way full. Suzi, paying no attention to what’s going on behind her, finds her hands wandering under Darius’s shirt, finding warm, taught skin, drawing him closer to her. Too infatuated by dark eyes and caresses, she hasn’t noticed that there’s no steam or heat coming from the tub. She almost whimpers when Darius pulls away, leaving her wanting and longing for more, retrieving a bottle from the cabinet and pouring some wonderfully scented tea-tree oil into the water.

Suzi stares longingly at Darius: hopping in the tub with him isn’t really going to do much to help her feet, but damn it’s a good distraction... Reaching for him to close the space between them, Suzi’s breath catches in her chest, she wants to pick back up right where they left off before he got the bath oil...

‘Seems like he’s got the same idea...’

Darius’s lips are on her neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin, and it feels so good that Suzi’s collapsing into him, practically forgetting she even has feet... She groans as Darius shifts her in his muscular arms, lifting her up, turning her as he kisses her shoulder, until suddenly Suzi lets out an almighty shriek, loud enough to be heard all over Las Vegas!

“COLD!! COLD!! YOU!! YOU!!”

Darius is trying his best to look sorry as Suzi gasps for air, his hand firmly holding her feet in the tub, but the smile he’s tamping down is crinkling up his eyes and threatening to turn into peals of laughter,

“Keep your feet in there, Suzi. Getting into the cold water is the worst part, I saved you having to think about it. Better just to dive straight in...”

Suzi scowls at him, knowing that he’s actually right, but she sure as hell isn’t about to tell him that! She turns her face away from him, rejecting the kiss her offers her, huffing,

“Oh it’s going to take waaaaay more than ‘that’ to make up for this trickery!”

Darius hook his finger under her chin, and Suzi makes a show of allowing him to direct her, his eyes burning as she meets them,

“Good job I don’t have any other plans tonight, then...”

[demisexual-deesaster]

Imagine the Circus of Sin's troupe, but they're in college/uni. MC is the med student at the same

[silly-lovestruck-em]

DARIUS IS ME WITH DOUBLE SIDED PACKET ASSIGNMENTS!!!

[etiennettesblog]

🥰🥰 me encanta, podrá ser un villano pero ama los dulces

[littlemisswolfie]

all the memories we make that will never change

AO3

Summary: As Yi’s pregnancy progresses, memories, good, bad, and in between, are made.

As she steps out of Darius’s stupidly-big shower, Yi stops and looks in the mirror over the vanity. Sure enough, there’s a slight swell to her belly now. “That explains the back pain,” she mutters. “Look, baby, I know you’re just growing and all, but your momma needs a little relief from the back pain. Can you manage that?”

Now that she’s showing, she’s in her second trimester. At least thirteen weeks in. At most, Darius has twenty-seven weeks to make it home if he’s going to see his child born.

As far as Yi knows, the troupe hasn’t told him about her pregnancy. Not if they did what she asked, anyway. Wrath has a way to contact Darius in case of an emergency, and Yi made it very clear that she wasn’t to tell Darius about the pregnancy unless he wasn’t back by the time she went into labor. “He’ll come back right away,” she’d said when Wrath asked why. “He needs this time to figure out who he really is, and I won’t be the one to steal that time away from him.”

“He’s going to be pissed off when he comes back and finds out you didn’t tell him” Wrath warned.

And Yi had just shrugged. “I’m kinda banking on him being so surprised that he’s going to be a father that he forgets to be mad.”

A sudden rapping on Darius’s bedroom door, audible even in his bathroom, startles her out of her thoughts. “Yi?” says Malakai’s voice. “We need to leave for your ultrasound soon.”

“Coming!” Yi calls back, and she proceeds with her quick morning routine.

*

Onyx and Malakai hold her hands at the doctor when the ultrasound shows her her baby. It’s actually starting to look like a baby now, which is exciting, and when the doctor asks if she wants to know the sex, she says, “Yes.”

The doctor, a kindly older woman named Dr. Rudy, smiles. “Congratulations, Ms. Cheng, you’re going to have a baby boy.”

*

Now that she knows the sex of the baby, she lets the troupe start on decorating duty.

They’re all a lot more excited about it than she expected, but she’s not complaining about it. That just means she doesn’t have to do any of the actual work outside of approving color swatches. “But no furniture yet,” she says, firm, when Cal stares at a crib just a little too hard for her liking. “I’m going to ask my mom if she still has any of my baby stuff to use so we don’t have to spend a bunch of money on things he’s going to outgrow in a few years.”

As it turns out, her mom kept all of her baby stuff, and she’s more than willing to bring it all up to the apartment if one of the guys will go get her. She’s gotten a lot closer to the troupe as a whole since Yi moved out (partly because she has them over once a week for dinner), even if she’s still out of the loop about the whole assassin thing. Yi is glad her distaste is just for Darius is particular and not the group as a whole.

This happiness changes pretty quick when she realizes her mom also brought her old photo albums.

“Mom!” she whines, looking at the worn albums in dismay. “Why did you have to bring those?”

“My baby is having a baby. I get to reminisce.”

Cal passes on the baby picture opportunity to help Yi move the numerous cardboard boxes filled with baby furniture and decorations to the room they’ve decided to use as a nursery. It’s the smallest bedroom in the penthouse and not too far from her room, and it’s not close enough to Avi’s room for the baby to wake him up in the middle of the night. 

“Wow,” Yi mutters when she sees the assembly of boxes. “Mom really did bring everything, huh?” 

Cal claps a hand on her shoulder. “We can worry about unpacking all of it later.”

Yi raises an eyebrow at him. “You, putting something off? Who are you and what have you done with the real Cal?”

“I’m pretty sure one of those boxes has a crib in it and I refuse to put that together. Besides,” he adds, “I do want to see those baby pictures.”

Yi groans.

When they get back out to the living room, the rest of the troupe, plus Avi and Ripley (who Yi is surprised her mother is so cool with), are gathered around Yi’s mother as she explains the context behind various pictures. “...and this is from when Yi broke her arm trying to jay-hop for the first time.”

“I was four and trying to jump with a bike that still had training wheels,” Yi says, and everyone turns to look at her and Cal. “And in my defense, I told you I was gonna do it and you didn’t believe me.”

Cal leans over her shoulder to peer at the photo. “Is that a hot pink cast?”

“A hot pink cast that every biker who came into the store signed, thank you very much.”

“I didn’t know you did BMX,” Wrath says, looking excited. “After the baby’s born, we should go out riding together sometime.”

“A motorcycle is a little different from a BMX bike,” Malakai says.

Yi’s mother smiles. “Just a little. I have some videos of Yi’s actual BMX days at home if you’d like to see them.”

“Ooh!” says Onyx. “Yi, could you teach me how to ride a bike on the tightrope?”

“Uh, I’ve never ridden a bike on a tightrope, so I’m not sure?” When Onyx looks disappointed, she rushes to add, “I mean, I could build you a bike and teach you how to do BMX tricks, if you wanted to do that.”

“Can you teach me, too?” Avi asks, eyes sparkling.

Yi cuts Cal a surprised look. “You never taught him how to ride a bike?”

“I’ve been busy,” says Cal.

Yi shakes her head and turns back to Avi. “Let’s start with the basics, okay? I’ll take you to the shop one day and help you pick out what you want for your bike.”

“Are you sure you’re up to building bikes?” Malakai asks, sounding concerned. “Couldn’t that be dangerous?”

“I’ve been building bikes since I was, like, ten. I know how to do it safely. Plus,” she adds, “I’m bored out of my mind, just hanging out here all day. I’d kill for something to kill time on.”

And so she gets permission to build bikes again.

*

Avi’s bike is very easy to build, since it’s small and less complicated than the one Onyx would need to use in a high stakes circus act, so she gets that one done first, while Avi is at school. Then she gets started on Onyx’s.

It’s all hot pink and green, of course. What else would Onyx pick out? Yi isn’t much bigger than Onyx, so that helps a lot when she’s building the body, because she can just measure it out with her own torso and legs and just adjust it a little after. 

God, with med school and the whole sin assassin thing, she forgot how calming it is to just… build a bike. She’s working on the pedals now, singing under her breath. “Never did I think that I would be caught in the way you got me….” Sure, Yi’s never had a great singing voice (unlike Wrath, she learned when she heard the ringleader singing in the shower a few days after she moved in), but a silly little thing like a lack of talent wasn’t going to stop her from singing a Panic song.  

There’s a little fluttering in her stomach. She won’t say it’s the baby moving yet, not until she’s actually sure, but she at least suspects he’s starting to shift around a little. “Taking after your dad already,” she tells the baby, very seriously. “Are you going to be a trapeze artist, too? I’m sure he’ll have you up there as soon as you can stand up.” She glances up at the trapeze above her and can’t help but smile. “Maybe he’ll catch you faster than he caught me.”

A small body barrels into her back and almost sends her face-first into the frame of Onyx’s bike. “Are you talking to the baby again?” Avi’s voice asks in her ear.

From somewhere behind them, Cal says, “Be careful, Avi. You could’ve hurt Yi or the baby.”

Yi turns her head to look at Avi, whose eyes have gone comically wide. “Did I hurt you?” he asks, voice small.

She laughs and turns her whole body around so she can pull him into her lap. “No, I’m fine, and so’s the baby.” She takes one of his hands and puts it on her belly. “I think you’ll be able to feel him move soon.”

His eyes light up. “Really?” he asks.

“I can kind of feel him now, but it’s still too gentle for you to. But soon.” 

“How are the bikes coming along?” Cal asks, finally close enough to talk to her without shouting.

She tilts her head towards the mess that will be Onyx’s bike. “Avi’s is all done and ready to test out, and Onyx’s is coming along just fine. I bet I can get it done by tomorrow evening.”

Cal clucks his tongue. “Don’t push yourself. It’ll be a few months before Wrath lets her get that bike anywhere near the tightrope anyway.” He extends a hand. “Come on, let’s get back upstairs. Malakai and Wrath are going to start setting up for tonight’s show soon.”

*

“You must really like kids,” she says to Cal while they ride the elevator up to the penthouse.

He looks surprised. “Why do you say that?”

“You haven’t tried to argue with me since I found out I was pregnant.”

“I can start again if you’d like.”

“Shut up.”

*

She picks out a warm grey and a deep, rich purple for the walls in the nursery. 

Yi always knew she wanted purple, but it seemed like a bit much, so she’s hoping the grey will balance it out. Her mom comes over for a weekend to help her and Malakai paint. Wrath claims to have less than zero artistic skill, Onyx points out that she’s the shortest member of the troupe and, therefore, has no reason to be there, and Cal just doesn’t want to paint. Ripley wants to help but she’s, well, a bear, so she can’t, and Yi distracts Avi away from the paintbrushes by suggesting he take some blank canvases they’d used to test paint colors and make pictures to hang on the wall.

She’s unendingly grateful for the assortment of old clothes Darius left behind, because she uses them to avoid shopping for maternity clothes. The old, torn, white shirt of his she’s wearing now is splattered with splotches of purple and grey, and she’s pretty sure she has paint on her face, too, from when she raises her paintbrush a little too quickly and paint went flying.

However, Yi doesn’t get to help out too much, on account of her hands going numb at random times. Any time either her mom or Malakai see her hand so much as shake, they take her brush away and make her sit on the floor for at least ten minutes. “Did I do this to you?” she asks her mom.

She grins at her. “Just wait until your boobs start hurting.”

Malakai sputters and Yi groans.

At the end of the weekend, the nursery is painted completely. The walls are mostly grey, but the wall the crib will be against has little purple stars painted as accents. The purple also lines the windows, the baseboards, and the doorframe. It looks pretty good, in her opinion.

Now they just have to put all the furniture together.

*

Sunday before her mom leaves, she teaches Yi how to make jian bing. Yi decides to make Chinese food for breakfast on Sundays from now on.

*

Onyx finally forces Yi to come shopping with her when she wears the same pair of (Darius’s) sweatpants for three days straight. The storefronts are all decorated for Christmas even though Thanksgiving hasn’t passed yet. Yi wonders if Darius will be home by Christmas.

Yi has to get measured for a bra for the first time since tenth grade. It’s bizarre.

Onyx smirks at her when they get the results that she’s a whopping two cup sizes bigger than usual. “Darius is one lucky man when he gets home if you still have those.”

Yi blushes and smacks her in the shoulder. “Shut up, oh my god. I have stretch marks.”

“So? He likes you because you don’t take his bullshit. Your good looks are just a bonus.”

She has to buy jeans with elastic in the waistband. It’s not great for her ego.

*

“Is it weird that I’m a little disappointed the baby hasn’t done anything weird?” she asks the troupe one night when she manages to stay awake until they come back up to the penthouse.

“You’re just bored again,” Wrath says, her words slurring just the slightest bit. Compared to Onyx, who’s stripping down to her undies in the middle of the living room, she’s downright sober. “We should find you another hobby.”

“That sounds like an insult,” Malakai says.

“Well, it’s not.”

Yi sighs. “I’ll figure something out.” She rubs her stomach. “What do you think, squirt?”

Then she feels it.

A kick.

“Holy shit, the baby kicked.”

Before she can say anything else, the troupe is surrounding her, each with a hand on her belly. They all look so… in awe, Yi thinks the right word is. Like something earth shattering is happening right beneath their hands. 

It would be perfect, if only Darius were here.

*

Cal comes to her next ob appointment since the others are all busy with a  mark. Just because Kozholok has been quiet doesn’t mean every demon in Las Vegas is taking an extended vacation. The rest of the team gets to take the Jeep, so Cal gets a rideshare and they drop Avi off at school on their way to the doctor’s.

Dr. Rudy says everything is going just fine. “Your baby is developing right on schedule and I don’t see any abnormalities. You’re on track for a perfectly healthy delivery, Ms. Cheng.” She gives her a little more advice about the coming weeks, prints out an ultrasound picture, and tells her to call if anything seems off, and then Yi and Cal are free to leave.

Yi holds the ultrasound photo close to her chest on the rideshare back to the penthouse. “Do you remember if we used the last of those old picture frames my mom brought us?” she asks Cal. “I want to frame this for the nursery.”

“I’ll check when we get home and go grab one if we don’t,” he says. “Do you need anything else while we’re out?”

“I don’t think so.”

Then, like any good rideshare driver wouldn’t do, their driver talks to them. “You must be excited,” he says. “I remember what it was like when my wife was pregnant.”

“Oh, we’re not together,” Yi says. “He’s just a friend. My boyfriend’s out of town right now so he’s helping out.”

“Sorry for assuming,” the driver says, sounding sheepish, and the rest of the drive is silent.

It’s not until they’re in the elevator that Cal speaks again. “What are you going to do if Darius doesn’t come back?”

“He will,” Yi says, “so I don’t have to worry about it.”

“For someone so smart, you can be a real idiot sometimes.”

Yi bristles. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means,” Cal says, “that you don’t just have you to worry about anymore. Your son needs stability. He needs to know he can explore things because he has a constant he can fall back on. Darius’s whole schtick is being wild and unpredictable. Does that say ‘stability’ to you?”

“I told him to come back to me a better man.” She knows her voice is rising, but she can’t help it. “He loves me. I know he does. I was in his mind for a few minutes, out there in the desert. He just needs to realize that for himself. He’ll be ready to settle down when he comes home.”

Cal scoffs. “You think you’re the first woman he’s made feel like that?”

Yi crosses her arms and glares. The elevator dings to let them know they’ve arrived, but neither of them move. “I’m not stupid, Cal. I know Darius was a playboy. He could walk into a bar and point at any woman attracted to men and have her in bed.”

“And you’re putting your faith in him to help you raise a baby? Even when you’re exhausted from waking up in the middle of the night and fall asleep in the middle of sex, or when you’re too sore for him to touch you, or you don’t have the energy to get all dressed up?”

“You are way out of line, Cal. Don’t push it.”

He huffs. “There are better men to raise a baby with. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Who the fuck do you suggest, then?” she demands.

Over these last several months, Yi thinks she’s gotten to know Cal better than he thinks. He hates pickles and glares at Yi every time she puts them on his burger when she irritates him, and he snores when he falls asleep on the living room couch, and if Avi uses his puppy dog eyes he melts like a popsicle in July. 

So when she asks him this question, she expects a snarky comeback.

She doesn’t expect him to grab her by the shoulders and kiss her.

Then, before she has a chance to respond, he pulls away and stalks out of the elevator, leaving her alone with her racing thoughts and her pounding heart.

[optimajuliette]

[aquagirl1978]

[violettduchess]

[lioras]

MC discovering that Darius had a demon inside just after having sex with him

[waiting-on-orion]