Chapter Text
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They’d come to an accord, Jinu and Rumi. The Saja Boys would purposely lose the Idol Awards, Huntrix would sing Golden and the Honmoon would glow and seal away all demons. Whether she could keep Jinu here on this side of the barrier and erase her own patterns...neither of them truly knew if it would work.
So, they decided to make the most of possibly their last night together.
Rumi grabbed the front of Jinu’s shirt and pulled him down to kiss her, hard and fierce, all the passion she’d been denying since the day they met. His arms wrapped around her, his warmth, his scent enveloping her, cocooning her until the rest of the world didn’t exist.
“Come with me,” she said, taking his hand in hers, fingers interlacing. Her urgency slowed when he tugged on their joined hands and brought them up to his lips to kiss the back of her hand, and then each knuckle. He smiled that annoyingly, perfect grin that made her knees weak.
“We might not have the rest of our lives, but we do have all night,” he said. “We can still take our time.” He pulled her back into his arms and she let herself be held.
They rode Derpy back to the Huntrix penthouse, Sussie perched on his enormous head like a hood ornament. It felt like flying when they were this high above the city streets, where the sounds became a comforting, familiar buzz of life. They passed by Seoul Tower lit up green against the night sky and on they went until Derpy landed on the balcony outside of Rumi’s room.
Derpy and Sussie disappeared, sinking into the ground. Derpy’s eyes staring at them, unblinking until they were swallowed up.
“Is he always so.....” Rumi made a non-committal gesture with her hand.
“Creepy? Yes.”
Rumi took Jinu’s hand and led him into her room. To her bed and there her confidence faltered. She bit her lip, not sure how to voice her inexperience and her growing embarrassment at realizing just how out of her depth she was. She could preform a sold out show in front of 50,000 fans but was nervous in a room alone with a boy. A demon. Whatever he was, it didn’t matter.
“Are you okay?” Jinu asked. He held both of her hands in his and when she felt herself on the verge of a panic attack, he gently squeezed them. His fingers tracing circles on her skin.
She took a deep breath, “I-I’ve never done this before,” she said, gutting the confession out of herself.
His mouth opened in surprise, but he didn’t look like he wanted to change his mind. “Okay, do you want me to take the lead?” he asked.
Rumi squeezed his hands back. She squeezed three times, letting the feeling of him ground her in this moment and settle her anxiety. “Yes, please,” she whispered. And then he was kissing her, slow and firm and it was.....perfect. He was perfect.
Jinu laid her down on the bed, and kissing turned to roaming hands and clothing being shed. He was patient and thorough, leaving no inch of skin untouched by his lips. And what Rumi expected to be awkward and mildly painful was instead an evening that made her understand the term, making love.
Rumi felt like it was a cliche to say it was the best night of her life. And when she fell asleep wrapped in Jinu’s arms, her head resting on his chest, his heartbeat thumping wildly beneath her ear. The sound of it as it slowed and his breathing evened with sleep.
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A few hours later, not long after midnight. Rumi awoke disoriented. Feeling like she was in the middle of a world tour, waking up in a hotel room unsure what country she was currently in. Her hunter senses usually snapped her into focus after a second, but nothing seemed to be working. Which should have worried her a lot more than it did.
There was warmth all around her and when she tried to move the warmth tightened. Was she trying out weighted blankets again? She moved her hand and hit warm skin that didn’t belong to her. That wasn’t right? The night before should have come back to her in a rush, but it didn’t. Another sign that something wasn’t right but the order of the world felt so distant.
She made a sound. At least she thought she did. It was her mouth that moved, but the wounded whimper that came out of her was foreign. Weak.
“Rumi?” A familiar voice. She made another sound and winced when the bedside lamp was turned on and she was overwhelmed by the harsh light. She closed her eyes and tried to bury herself in the broad chest beside her. She keened when it moved away from her and hands came up to touch her face. She opened her eyes and above her was Jinu. Jinu? Slowly, their night trickled back into her memory. His mouth was moving, saying something....but it wasn’t reaching her ears.
Her body ached all over, but she was too disoriented to do anything about it or even tell Jinu. And above her the concern on Jinu’s face became greater and greater. He was panicking, looking near to tears. And then he looked at her and she felt naked beneath his gaze, probably because she was naked beneath the comforter. His eyes were glistening, his mouth set in a determined line.
Jinu bent down and kissed her. A surge of energy flooded through her, lighting up her body, synapses firing in her brain beating back the fog. She gasped and clutched at Jinu’s shoulders, finally having enough control to move her limbs. The energy was too much, too fast, it hurt. Her pulling hands pushed him back and he went sprawling onto the bed.
They were both gasping. Rumi felt freezing and like she was burning up, she clutched the comforter to her chest. “What the hell was that!” she yelled at him, and winced hoping Mira and Zoey didn’t hear her. “What the hell was that?” she whisper seethed.
Jinu righted himself. “I passed some of my power to you to get your head back on straight. Whatever was going on before that I have no freaking idea.” His hands were shaking.
“Your power?” Rumi looked down at her arms where her usually light purple patterns were a few shades darker against her pale skin. “Why did you-” Rumi was cut off, the breath knocked out of her by a pain deep in her gut that radiated out to the rest of her body. Jinu was instantly at her side again.
“Rumi, what is it? What’s happening?” he tried to hold back the panic from his voice, but it was a losing battle.
She clutched his arm, fingernails digging in and breaking skin. “I-I don’t know.” she said through gritted teeth. And as quick as it started the pain vanished and Rumi caught her breath in heavy gasps. “I-it’s like pain, in my gut.” Jinu grabbed the comforter and ripped it off Rumi.
They stopped breathing, stopped thinking, stopped existing altogether for a moment. Because what they were looking at made no sense. It was impossible and definitely couldn’t be what it looked like.
Jinu’s mouth had gone dry and it took him three tries before he finally was able to say, “You....you’re-”
“No, I’m not!” Rumi said. In direct response to her denial, she felt a firm thump come from inside her belly. It was strong enough to be visible to both Rumi and Jinu. They turned to each other, then back to what looked like a seven month pregnant belly.
Rumi gasped, hunching forward as the pain began again and watched in horror as her belly grew . She opened her mouth to scream but Jinu covered it before any sound could escape. She tried to bite his palm but ended up clenching her teeth and straining backwards, trying uselessly to get away from the thing that was causing her pain.
She focused all her energy on not screaming when Jinu took his hand away so he could cradle her in his arms. But the pain was so intense, tears ran down her cheeks and broken ragged sobs escaped her mouth. After a minute the pain vanished and she breathed deeply, in and out, feeling like she was coming down from the panic attacks she used to have as a kid.
She looked up at Jinu, who while definitely still panicking about what was happening, he no longer looked confused. “What is happening?” her voice frail.
Jinu turned to her. “I’m sorry, you’re only half demon.....I-I didn’t think this was possible.”
“What is it?” she asked.
His brow furrowed. “A baby,” he said slowly, like that should have been obvious.
“Clearly!” she said, smacking him on the chest. “How is it happening?”
Jinu blew out a long, slow breath. “You are having a demon pregnancy.”
“What. The. Fuck. Is. A. Demon. Pregnancy.”
“They’re rare-ish, like one in every 100 demon women, and I-I didn’t think it was possible, you’re only half demon,” he repeated, slowly leaning away from Rumi and the wrath he saw building in her eyes. “They usually are over in a few hours, it probably started right after we...you know.” he gestured vaguely.
Rumi counted to ten in her head, and then did it again, trying to focus her mind on something other than her instinct to kill Jinu.
“How long do I have before....before its born?” she asked, and nearly started hyperventilating at the idea that she would have to birth whatever creature was growing inside her and unlike most women she didn’t have nine months to mentally prepare for it.
“Uh....I think you’ve got one growth period left, so....30 minutes,” he said, slowly crawling to the edge of the bed.
“30 minutes!” Rumi tried to follow him, to kick his ass, but her center of gravity was not where she’d last left it and she had to thrust her arms out in front of her to keep from tumbling over. She braced herself on her bed, her belly a distended weight out in front of her. Jinu came back to her, his hands on her arms steadying her. “I can’t have a baby,” she whispered.
Rumi looked up into Jinu and the expression in her eyes broken. When they’d battle in the bathhouse and he’d seen her patterns, she’d been scared. This...this was pure terror. He pulled her to his chest, and wrapped her protectively in his arms.
“It’s going to be horrible, and painful,” he said and Rumi gave an indignant sound. “But it’ll be quick. That’s the one good thing about demon pregnancies, they go very quick. Most people barely feel the first half of the growth periods and don’t feel pain until the end. You’re a champ you slept through most of them.” Rumi gave him a broken laugh. “Now we’ve got a few choices to make and a very short amount of time to make them. First-”
The final growth period started and Rumi arched back in Jinu’s arm, feeling like she’d lost all control of her body. The pain was so intense she’d gone past the point of screaming, her mouth hung open a hiss of air escaping as she prayed for the pain to stop. Jinu was talking to her, trying to comfort her.
This time with the end of the pain, came an unpleasant feeling of pressure in her pelvis. She put her hand on her belly that had grown even larger, the skin tight beneath her palm.
“Do you want to do it here in the bed, or in the bathroom?” Jinu asked.
It took Rumi a few seconds to catch back up to what they’d been talking about. “The bathroom,” she said. She didn’t know much about childbirth, but she knew it was messy. And she was glad to skip any going to the hospital nonsense, that was obviously out of the question.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“I can try.” Jinu helped pull her to her feet and stayed at her side as they walked across her room. It was one of the oddest experiences of her life. She felt so...heavy was the only way she could describe it. They went through her walk in closet and into the ensuite. Her bathroom was the farthest room away from any living space Zoey or Mira might inhabit.
How would she explain this to Zoey and Mira. And tonight, fuck they were supposed to preform at the Idol Awards tonight and she was walking into her bathroom to have a fucking baby. The universe was playing some sick joke on her.
She shook her head, she’d deal with all that later. First and foremost, she needed to get this baby out of her and not die in the process. She was half demon, she could survive having a demon baby. Her mother couldn’t, but she would.
Jinu helped her into the walk in shower and sat her down gently on the walk in shower’s built in bench. He disappeared back to the hallway and a minute later returned with a stack of towels that towered over his head.
“What are you going to do with those?” she asked.
He set them down on the countertop. “Honestly, I don’t know. We should have something to wrap the baby up in, right? Should I be boiling water? We should sterilize our hands, right?” He was rambling at this point, turning the sink tap on hot and starting to scrub his hands. The rising steam showing how scalding the water was. “Do you have any names?”
Rumi couldn’t explain why but she started laughing. It was just so ridiculous . Fourty-Eight hours ago they’d been at each others throats and now they were having a baby together. But her laughter got choked in her throat when a gush of fluids came out from between her legs. Jinu stood frozen, drying his hands on one of the many towels he’d brought.
The first contraction brought Rumi to her knees.
She collapsed forward onto the granite tile, her kneecaps hitting the stone with a hard thwack . Jinu was there holding her as she shook and keened, trying to hold in her screaming so the entire building didn’t wake up because it would if she let out just how much it fucking HURT.
She’d thought the growth period was bad, this was like something ripping out of her, because something was ripping out of her. She waited for the contraction to end, but it didn’t, it kept going and going, building stronger and stronger.
“B-belt.” she choked out to Jinu.
“What?”
She had to focus on the pain, focus on her breathing, focus on not summoning her sword and cutting this thing out of her to make the pain stop.
“F-from my....closet. L-leather belt,” she gritted out. Jinu was gone and back in an instant. Rumi took the belt and shoved it in her mouth between her teeth and finally let herself scream. She kept going until her voice was ragged and she had nothing but broken sobs.
The contractions kept going, forcing the baby out in one endless contraction and then on top of it all came the sudden, unbearable urge to bear down. Rumi reached for Jinu’s hand and squeezed it hard enough to hear the bones inside creak and snap. He yelped but didn’t try to pull away.
She felt Jinu’s other hand touching her, feeling for the baby. He’d grabbed a towel and laid it down over the edge of the granite bench to make it more comfortable for her to brace her back against.
“It’s coming out,” he said. “I think it’s crowning.”
It burned. It fucking burned. Rumi found herself pushing harder to get it over and make the pain stop. Jinu tried to urge her to slow down but she would do whatever it took to get this over with.
Another great, crescendoing, burning pain, and then relief.
“The heads out,” Jinu said.
“Just the head!” she said the belt falling from her mouth. There was a minute of rest as the contractions abated.
Jinu kissed her forehead. “You’re doing amazing. All that’s left is the shoulders and then you’re done. Okay? You can do that, you’re the most kickass woman I’ve ever met, and this by far is the most badass thing you’ve ever done.” Jinu grabbed another towel, he’d moved the stack to just outside the shower at some point. “I need my hand back so I can catch the baby.” Rumi let him go, feeling like she was losing her lifeline.
She lifted herself up against the bench until she was squatting and just as she got into position the contractions started again. Just as bad the last time and she was bearing down, pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing.....and then she wasn’t. She felt it slip away and out of her body.
And then it was crying, and Jinu was crying, and she was crying.
“It’s a girl,” he said, lifting the baby up for her to see.
She was tiny, and red face, and covered in....things that Rumi didn’t want to identify. Her hair was black and slicked back and her face was scrunched up in anger as she cried. And she was the most beautiful thing Rumi had ever seen.
Jinu helped her up to sit on the bench and she held out her arms to take the baby...to take her daughter. Jinu had wrapped her up in a soft blue towel and placed her in Rumi’s arms. Instantly she stopped crying. Her furious red face, relaxing and calming down to a natural shade. Her eyes opened and dark brown eyes stared back at her.
“She’s....she’s....”Rumi didn’t know what to say.
Jinu touched the baby’s face and she grabbed his finger, holding it in her tight grasp. Jinu laughed. “She’s perfect,” he finished. Rumi nodded and shifted an arm free so she could touch their daughter’s cheek. Her skin was soft beneath the grime that covered her.
They sat in silence watching their daughter watch them.
Their daughter.
“I’m a mom,” Rumi said. She looked away from her baby and up at Jinu. “You’re a dad. That’s crazy.” He nodded his agreement, his eyes flicking between her and their daughter.
“I guess I’ll have to start brushing up on my dad jokes,"
“Oh, please no,” Rumi said rolling her eyes.
Jinu chuckled. “Oh, I got one. Why do Melons have weddings? They cantaloupe!” Rumi smiled and Jinu grinned at her and kissed her on the mouth. He leaned to kiss the baby’s forehead, saw all the gunk still covering her and gently wiped her forehead with the towel before he kissed her.
“She needs a name,” Rumi said.
“That can wait,” he said. “Let’s get you both cleaned up and back in bed so you can rest.”
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Daylight spilled in through the open curtains into Rumi’s bedroom. She stared up at the ceiling as she came awake, feeling every ache and pain that radiated through her body. She looked to her right. Jinu was sleeping curled around a wicker basket that laid between them. She could just see her daughter’s face over the lip of the basket.
Slowly Rumi sat up, her lower half screaming at her to lay still and not move....ever.
She sat back against her headboard and watched them sleep. A few days ago she wanted to kill him and now they shared a baby, and all she wanted to do was curl up against his chest and let him hold her. Hold them.
She stared down at her hands, at her patterns that now extended down to her fingertips. Apparently they’d been flaring and growing the entire time she’d been in labor, but she’d been so out of it and in so much pain she hadn’t noticed. Even when her baby was in her arms, she couldn’t spare a glance to her own skin to see the change.
It wasn’t until Jinu was cleaning them both up and helping deliver the placenta that she’d seen them covering her from head to toe. And she felt....nothing. They were as much a part of her as being a hunter was. She should never have felt ashamed of them, they were beautiful. Just like they were on her daughter.
She only had one mark so far. It was in the middle of her back, the same place that Rumi’s first mark had grown from.
Rumi would not put her daughter through the same life of fear and shame that she went through. She would be the example she wished she’d had as a kid, the mom she’d wished she had. There was no more hiding, not after today, not ever again. Her, and Jinu, and......she really needed to come up with a name for her daughter. She was already stumbling at the first motherhood hurdle.
At the bedside the alarm went off, Jinu and the baby both woke up. Rumi shrieked and hurriedly smacked it off. At the sound of the crying Jinu was instantly awake and hovering over the basket looking the fussy baby over.
“Give her to me,” Rumi said. Jinu carefully picked her up and set her in Rumi’s arms. The crying stopped and Rumi cradled her to her chest, stroking her forehead and humming to her. Jinu came up to sit beside Rumi and tucked her into the crook of his arm.
“It’s insane how much I already love her,” Rumi said. “Like it should be concerning how okay I just am with this. I never even thought about having kids before.”
“I’d like to say its your human motherly instinct, but I think its your demon side calling the shots on this one,” he told her. She looked up at him eyebrow raised. “We demons are notoriously, bloodthirstily protective of our offspring. We bond with them almost instantly, probably because of the rapid pregnancies its some kind of biological necessity so we don’t abandon them.”
Rumi shook her head, “I couldn’t imagine abandoning her,”
“Me either.”
“What do we do now?” she asked. Jinu shrugged. “I have to tell my friends today, I can’t hide this and I definitely can’t preform at the Idol Awards tonight. I’m not sure I could walk unassisted to the bathroom, let alone get up on stage and do a choreographed dance routine while singing some killer high notes.”
“How about first off I run to the store and grab some diapers and baby necessities before we’re cleaning poopy off of your comforter.”
Rumi snorted. “Poopy? You did not just say poopy.”
“Hey, I’m a dad now, I can say poopy.” Rumi rolled her eyes.
Jinu left and Rumi......planned.
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By the time Jinu had returned half an hour later with a shopping carts worth of baby provisions including a car seat....Rumi had fed the baby and made a gameplan.
The first step was to get the one person who already knew her secret here. She texted Celine.
Critical Huntrix meeting ASAP, need you here at headquarters.
Her phone pinged a minute later.
I’ll be there in twenty minutes.
“She’s on her way,” Rumi told Jinu.
He nodded. “Do you want me here?”
“It would probably be better if you weren’t here, but stay close by. I’ll call for you when I think they’re ready for that part of everything,” Rumi said, glancing down at her sleeping daughter.
“Alright, well we’ve got twenty minutes, which means more time for snuggling,” he said, hopping into the bed and wrapping his arms around Rumi and the baby.
In the next hour shit was going to hit the fan, but for right now.....they were a family of three who got to enjoy a beautiful morning together. There were no demons plotting against them, no hunters out to kill them, and no honmoon to worry about. They would be okay, Rumi knew it.
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