Work Text:
What She's Always Wanted
((This fic is not authorized for AI voice readings or AI generation.))
"Can I tell you a secret?" Douma looks up at her lover from her spot on her futon. It's over stuffed and puffy with thick, well patterned covers. She lays on her back with Enmu sitting on her knees close to her side.
Enmu hesitates to answer her. She was often skeptical of her secrets as they tended to be random or off-putting. "I suppose," she answers anyway.
"I've always wanted to be a mother," Douma admits.
Her wistful tone is enough to make Enmu nervous if not for the statement alone. "This is hardly a place for a baby…" she settles on something safe to say. She didn't feel like arguing. These days she just liked excuses to be near her.
"I know," Douma says. "With the Upper-Ranks dying, now's a bad time, huh?"
"I meant the cult, my dearest."
"Oh, that's true," Douma pouts, looking at the ceiling. "And Lady Muzan would never allow it, would she? She's weird about her demons. Has to be her that makes them, huh?"
"Don't the Upper-Ranks make demons too?" Enmu asks.
"With permission. I've done it before but this is a little different, isn't it?"
Enmu isn't sure what to say. She's surprised Douma had the capacity to reflect on their hopeless situation at all. A great battle was on the horizon and Muzan would mobilize their ranks quite soon against the Hashira. Things were looking desperate. Desperate enough that Enmu was being considered as a potential tool despite her previously declared uselessness from the mother of all demons herself.
Douma breaks the silence before she has a chance to reflect much further. "Could we have a baby if we weren't living here?"
"Why would you want something like that?" Enmu frowns. This was hopefully just rambling and she wasn't actually serious. Douma chased extremes. She liked new sensations. She was most unpredictable when she was bored and today had been particularly uneventful.
"Do you know why you want fine wood and metal pens, or do you just understand that you like them?" Douma replies.
Enmu bristles with her resistance. "What does it even matter? A baby… How cumbersome in the grand scheme of things."
"I like that part," Douma smiles, placing a hand on Enmu's lap and rubbing her with her thumb. "I like the thoughtfulness of raising something up."
"You do that with the cult. It's all a lot of a work, hm?"
"Not the kind I like," Douma shakes her head. "Here would be no place for a baby. I was born here, you know?"
"I didn't know."
"Well now you do. I was born here and it wasn't very good to a little girl, I have to be honest. Boring boring boring, and everyone whines. Whines to a child. But you see, I would be far better than anything this place offered. I would be a good mother and a baby would be much happier for the things I never had."
Enmu wasn't entirely sure what she was getting at. From her perspective, Douma was very comfortably privileged. She had the status of the third most powerful demon in the world and the boundless loyalty of hundreds of human beings. Those humans believed she were an immortal prophet, here to share divine wisdom that would guide them to paradise. They adored her, waited on her hand and foot. Her clothes were lavish as were the arts the faithful dedicated in her image. By all metrics she should consider herself a venerated woman.
Douma's seeming lack of appreciation isn't what bothers Enmu most, however. It's that Douma is asking for something she can't give her.
"If you wanted a baby, you should have found a man to settle with."
"Nooo," Douma elongates the vowel in tandem with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I'm satisfied with you. Doesn't it delight you to win out over the others before?"
"What you're asking for isn't possible… Though you might be right. I shouldn't be so bitter. Even with a man, demons are infertile. Or at least they should be with the demand for her creation's loyalty like Lady Muzan's."
Douma rolls her eyes. She didn't care to talk about their Master. "We could make it work," she muses with a playful squeeze of Enmu's thigh. "Even if we had to find a baby, right?"
Enmu looks her in the eyes with a skeptical purse of her lips. She didn't care for the depth this game was getting into. Douma doesn't seem to know or care for her apprehension because she just keeps talking.
"Though…. When I really think about it, I like the idea of having your baby the most." The smile she gives her feels warmer than she was supposed to be capable of. Or at least warmer than Enmu was used to given Douma's emotional limitations. "You've really never thought of being a mother?" Douma asks.
"No," Enmu replies instantly. "Why would I want such a thing? I'm certain even when I was human I could only hate the idea. It's all a trap, you know. Motherhood is just a trap of blind servitude."
"You already do that with Muzan," Douma yawns, letting her head roll more comfortably against the pillow of her futon.
"I've given up on her…"
"And yet you were excited when she spoke of using you for battle. You're something else, Enmu."
Enmu flushes scarlet, slapping Douma's hand off her thigh. What would she know about wanting to be important when she already had been for over a century? "Children aren't something I care for," Enmu huffs. "Their minds are too inconsistent. They haven't figured out who they are and everything terrifies them. Does such fragility not offend you?"
Douma returns her slapped hand to her chest. It rises and falls with each relaxed breath. "That could change," she says with closed eyes. "I think you'd be fine with our baby."
Enmu stiffens, her back much straighter than before. How she could talk about a hypothetical baby like it was already happening was beyond her. "I'm far from maternal. You've seen my work."
Indeed she had. Enmu was only tender with Douma or those she intended to manipulate. Cruelty and selfishness were the states she knew her best in.
"Then you don't have to be a mother. Do you like the idea of being a father better?"
"I'm not a man," Enmu glares, holding herself.
"That's okay, then we can just be in love."
Love.
It's enough to make Enmu a bit softhearted. She never dreamed of such a thing being hers. Not ever. Demons were solitary and she was happy enough with this life. The people she spoke with were pawns. The men she tempted just tools. Vile creatures. Yet the women still caught her eye from time to time, it was never something she saw as hers to hold. Maybe that was the point of her life was to yearn for things that would never be hers.
There's a bitter resentment she carried for husbands with doting wives. She could do so much better if only given the chance. Their wasted potentials tied to uncaring masters. The very word for husband meant master. How deeply she pitied those girls, and only them.
Yet Douma gave her the chance to be more.
Even when Enmu set out to use her to get back in Muzan's good graces. Even when she'd used her to restore her body after the Mugen Train disaster. To Douma, every slight seemed perpetually inoffensive. The few things Douma did denounce seemed deeply personal in a way Enmu still didn't understand, yet they were never things Enmu herself seemed to trigger. Only states of the world or the habits of her cultists.
Enmu is physically pulled out of her thoughts when Douma drags her down by her shirt collar. Face to face, Douma plants a little kiss on her lips. The look she gives her after could not be considered anything but adoring.
"A child…" Enmu mumbles, her hands resting on Douma's shoulders. "That's quite the commitment you're speaking so flippantly of. That's the sort of thing that tears your dreams apart."
"I know," Douma sighs, again, looking frustratingly at peace with herself. "But I haven't liked anyone the way I've liked you. And a baby is something I've wanted for a long time."
"Really? In all your years of success this is what you desire?" Enmu settles to lay at her side, sharing her pillow with her. Douma just as quickly shares her blanket too.
"With my line of work you can imagine I've met a few babies," Douma says. "They all smell so sweet and fresh. Yet for one reason or another their mothers are unfit to keep them around. Or perhaps they only stay with my Temple as a gateway to something better. There's one girl I almost kept. She had an infant of her own and a young, lively face. Or at least she did after the swelling of her past went down. But she wasn't very open minded to the work I do, you see. She could have been my child too if she wished. Ah, it simply wasn't meant to be."
"Is that so?"
"Mmhm. She even looked at me like a mother for a little while. Back when things were simple. It's such a pity," Douma trails off.
The snippets Enmu learned about Douma's life were hard to take seriously. She never sounded particularly attached to any of it despite the detail she would recount things in. She was certain there was more breadth to this tale too, but for once Douma declines to share beyond the teaser.
"I've been with men before," Douma states suddenly. "Some of them were cute, some of them not. But they all felt the same way about me in the end. They didn't care about me at all. They were bored or they would brush me off. It's because my face is wrong, they said."
"Your face is wrong, dearest."
"I know, but they couldn't accept it like you could," Douma murmurs, cupping Enmu's cheek in her palm.
Oh, her flattery. Such wonderful flattery to be better than a man in the realm of romance. Enmu felt like a child to be so giddy over something so asinine. Yet here she was with electricity in her finger tips and a drum in her heart.
"I fear I've come to love you," Enmu nearly whispers, ashamed.
"Oh, you already care for me so well," Douma smiles, resting her lips on Enmu's forehead while she speaks. Her arms hold her close to her body, her cooler temperature obvious now with proximity. "I'll tell you another secret." She doesn't wait for an answer to continue. "I've never had a time in my life I could rely on anyone else. I was the guiding force of myself and of others. Even before I could form a conscious memory."
"When you were human?"
"But of course. How could I forget it?"
"… You must know I didn't care for you that way in the beginning."
Douma laughs openly, the bounce of her chest hitting Enmu's body before she gives her a little squeeze. Face to face they rest on their sides. "I never cared about that," Douma coos. "You stayed."
The sexual and romantic partners before Enmu had been stark contrasts to her present situation. They all started with lust or love professions. They were enamored with her apparent power and influence. Yet as time moved on, the relationships fell apart in a matter of weeks or less. Maybe the issue is they had all been human and would never grasp the importance of her Temple. Or maybe the issue is they fell in love with an idea of her, where Enmu had known her for what she was since the beginning and hated her for it before she ever came to like her.
"I never minded," Douma tells her honestly. "You're here now and taking the weight off my shoulders. I never knew how nice it was to surrender it to someone else until you came and did it for me."
Enmu rests quietly as she digests her words. She feels her eyes on her. She feels the heaviness of her expectations looming. She finds that this is what love felt most like was expectation. Yes. Expectation. But she didn't mind the busy work. She loved having things to do. She loved having the authority of planning and management. And if she were two-faced, she was still good with people where it mattered. Having someone more powerful than her in every way surrender her the rights to manage her life… It was an honor. One she wouldn't dare to waste.
It's hard to tell what Douma thinks of her silence. All she knows for certain is she's not offended. She never was.
"I admire you, you know," Douma says gently, hugging her arms around Enmu's head and pulling her into her ample chest. "Always thinking. Always moving. Any child of ours would be a brilliant one, don't you think?"
How sentimental. It's a feeling Enmu can't shake though she's not sure where it's coming from. A bit boldly she runs her hand along Douma's side from under the blanket, wedging her comparatively warm fingers along her lover's waist.
"Brilliant," Enmu scoffs. "Any brilliance would be from you. I'm not even an Upper-Rank."
"I wouldn't be either," Douma states without any hint of sarcasm or jest.
"What are your delusions this time?"
"If we had this baby, I would give everything up," Douma says. "I would give it all up. The cult, my attendants, my rank."
"Why?" Enmu asks, astonished.
"I like the idea of life with you better than anything the cult has given me," Douma doesn't hesitate at all to answer. "Maybe I'm inventing a sensation, but it feels right. Happy, almost. This has to be happiness if just the idea is fulfilling."
When Enmu raises her head to look at her, Douma runs her thumb over her lips. "We'd have a beautiful child," the Upper-Rank says. "Because you already are."
Enmu wasn't sure she agreed with her, but she finds herself kissing the tip of her thumb regardless. When it's pressed past her lips, she doesn't fight it, letting her tongue do the talking of how sweet she found her sentiments to be.
Predictably, Douma becomes somewhat restless. No doubt she's picturing fingers in a far better location. "I know you have tricks up your sleeve," Douma says somewhat cryptically. "And you must know I have tricks of my own. You can manipulate your body so artfully, but what about me? I'm sure I could figure it out…" A shiver creeps up her spine when Enmu pulls off of her thumb, leaving a thick coat of saliva behind.
Douma continues her rambling. "I could fix my insides if you could fix your outsides, don't you think?"
Enmu's flesh manipulation was something they both enjoyed for some months now. Particularly of summoning fleshy tentacles from any part of herself. The "ejaculate" was purely pretend, however. There was nothing alive about an imitation.
"I like when we lay together normally," Enmu mutters. Again, Douma is confusing her for something she's not. They weren't entirely alike in this way. Douma was much more free in her sexual preferences. Anyone who would have her was welcome but Enmu could never bring herself to orgasm over the thought of anything except another woman.
Seeming to pick up on her insecurity, Douma says, "I don't want you to be a man. I'm just saying I think we have a pretty good shot at this."
"How do you know?"
"I don't. But it can't hurt to try… I think of it often. Of a little family. Of you. Of us."
The covers rustle as Enmu moves to lay over top of her, holding Douma's face in her hands. A few tufts of her birch colored hair splay out between the gaps of her fingers, making her bright eyes seem all the more brilliant. A family? Part of a small yet not insignificant portrait of domesticity? It's moving, in a way, to imagine filling the role of patriarch. Something she and no other woman was supposed to have.
How much easier would it have been to love a man like she ought to? Yet how much more miserable?
While she didn't want to be one, she still desired the lives they had. Some deep, buried part of herself probably always had. Human memories or no. Douma accepted her in the roles she wanted to fill. Douma desired her in a place watching over her. Douma trusted her to manage such a sensitive thing as a family.
Maybe her face looks odd in her contemplation because Douma holds her face in turn, wearing an intentionally puzzled expression that did not come naturally to her. "Things don't have to change if you don't want them to," Douma says. "I only tell you because you're the favorite of anything I've come to indulge in."
It's hard not to be in her head about it. Not when Enmu honestly loved her.
A child wasn't what she wanted. Babies weren't things she liked no less valued. But the way Douma makes her feel, the way she turns her insides, is enough to indulge in the fantasy of a bad decision. It won't happen. She's certain it won't. But if Douma wants to pretend then Enmu can play the part. There wasn't a way for two demons to conceive, and yet she finds herself willing to put an honest effort into trying.
((My art inspired by this oneshot. There's supposed to be a blanket but I didn't feel like drawing it. Original post.))
