The last thing Shinobu expected was for this case to affect her livelihood, yet here it is.

Warning: Nightmares, and pets names

A/N: Despite replacing her last name when she got married, Giyuu calls Koko as a pet name.

-linebreak-

Shinobu wakes up to a loud, scream followed by a hitched breath and quiet sobs. It isn't her, she already knows that which means it can only be one person unless someone broke into her house without her knowledge but she highly doubts that, which means it's most likely her husband.

"Giyuu!"

Did he get?...

No, it's best not to assume the worst. But that sinking feeling in her stomach that sometimes did happen and she was too slow to stop it.

So not without slight hesitation, she looks towards the right side of her bed and the sight makes her stomach drop.

He's turned away from her completely, back towards her as his legs hang over the edge of the bed. His frame violently shook, he had his arms tightly wrapped around himself, his nails digging into his arms as ragged breaths escape his lips as he sobs as quietly as he can with the occasional hitch. She frowns at him if he keeps digging his nails into his arms it'll bleed and then the situation will get unexpectedly worse, yes, it'll ground him but it's possibly the worse way to ground him out of all of them.

"Giyuu," She says again, inching towards him, "Giyuu are you okay?" She softly asked, placing a tender hand on his shoulder which makes him flinch slightly, so she says: "It's okay honey, it's me, Shinobu, your wife, remember?" And then she tries again, and with the needed confirmation confirmed he melts into her touch with a shudder and a broken sob. Her heart aches at the sound.

It's not the first time he's had a nightmare, nor would it be if it were her who had one instead, it comes with their job, sadly. So she can't say it's strange for him to have one know, but what is strange is why he was so loud all of a sudden, he's always been a quiet crier which makes it notoriously difficult to find out when he's upset which was why the sudden noise was so strange. But either way, that didn't matter all that mattered was making sure he was okay and finding out what happened, he'd do the same if it were her in that situation.

Softly she turns him towards her, sliding her hands up his shoulder, neck until she can cup his cheek. He shivers under her touch, choking on a sob as he leans into it.

"Are you okay?" She crooned, brushing his bangs out of his face. "Just... Just hold me, please..." He chokes out with another sob. "O-okay..." Shinobu nods, holding him in her arms and letting him lean against her as he quietly sobs into her shoulder.

"I'm right here, we're here, at home, safe," She traces small circles into her back, soft whispering of reassurance as she holds him close to her. "I promise, it was just a dream,"

"Whatever you saw it wasn't real," She repeats her reassurance like a mantra, hoping, hoping that it'll be able to stave away whatever kind of nightmare he had, because if it was enough to make him scream like that it had to be a horrible one. She draws invisible lines onto his back, up and down his spine, his sobs eventually start to die down to small mumbles, the grip he had on her clothes haven loosened as he leaned against her shoulder. She softly strokes his hair, slightly scratching at his scalp as he mumbles against her shoulder.

"You don't need to tell me anything, you can just cry if that's what you want and I'll stay right here with you as you do." She says, "Mmmnn," he mutters, slowly, lifting his head up from her shoulder and letting his head rest on her shoulder.

"Are you okay?" She softly asked him, he just shrugged, muttering into the crook of his neck. "I guess..."

"What happened?" He immediately tenses under her and moves away and out of her grip, avoiding eye contact with her. "It's... It's stupid," He mutters, "It's not stupid if it made you have that kind of reaction," she reassurances, laying her hand on his shoulder. His shoulder shook. lip trembling as he struggled to meet her eyes.

"It's... It's the case you're on," He admitted, vaguely gesturing. "The hands one?"

"Yes, the hands one! I... I'm worried something might happen to you," He expressed while gesturing his hands in a circular motion. "Nothing is going to happen to me,"

"You say that an... And..." He sighed as he starred lowly at the bedsheets. "Why do you think I left the case? I've just been getting a bad feeling about it a-and this isn't the first time this happened, so-"

"Wait this isn't the first nightmare you had pertaining to this case?"

"Well yes, bu-"

"Why did you tell me, I thought we talked about this!"

"You looked so peaceful while you were asleep," He said with a frown, tilting his head to the side as he spoke. She furrowed her brows, a frown on her face starting to deepen.

"I don't care if I look peaceful, you need to wake me up," She gripped at his arms, tightly, giving him a small shake. "What happened to me?"

Giyuu can't meet her eyes anymore, looking away with reluctance and hesitancy, "I..." he shakes head. "It's... It's dumb,  I know it'd never happen to you you don't need to worry,"

"Not telling me is only going to make me worry more, so please," She pleaded, "tell me,"

"I..." he breathed in a deep breath, steadying himself. "You died, someone, I'm not sure who shot you, i-it was some guy and y-you died and you got shot a-and I had to sit there and watch- and it was horrible, I couldn't do anything! I was strapped to a chair a-and it was like he was trying to torture me by witnessing that and I-" As he speaks, he starts to fiddle with his hair, then tugging at it until he reached the end his sentences, eyes glassy with tears. "I thought I lost you, Koko, for good." He softly whispered, looking at her with the most broken she had seen him.

"Oh, honey," Silently, she pulls him in for a hug running a hand through his messy hair as he silently sobs into her shoulder. "I'm not going anywhere I swear, so please don't think that because it's not true." He lets out more hitched sobs as she speaks. "And I'm so sorry you have to go through that so next time something like that happen please tell,"

"You're stuck with me forever, whether you like it or not and I don't plan on leaving you so soon," His sobs eventually died down after a few moments, letting out heaved breaths as she rubbed his back and eventually his shoulder, kneading into the skin.

Eventually, he pulled away, rubbing his tears away with his palm and breathing in a hitched breath.

"Muichiro said something about the case. Something to me," He spoke with a deep breath.

"He did?" Her husband nods, "What did he say?"

"He..." he breathes in a deep breath. "He had a hunch, a hunch that something was wrong with this case when I left he told me that. He also said he wasn't going to stay long on it though if nothing came up,"

"Maybe his hunch was wrong?" Giyuu looked at her with a deadpanned expression. "This is a literal child prodigy were talking about, his hunches are almost never incorrect,"

"Still," He insisted, "90% of it being right, 90 fucking percent of it being right," she retorted.

"10%  of it being wrong,"

"I don't know, I believe him," She shrugged, looking away and so did he, and they fell into silence. After a few beats of silence, she looked up at him with a frown.

"Are you going to go to work tomorrow?"

"No... Probably not, what about you?"

"Yeah, probably,"

"Are you sure, can't you like... Stay with me, maybe?"

"I would but if this case is solving you so much stress then I need to solve it as soon as possible."

"Koko," He tilted his head at her, starring sadly with a frown.

"Just trust me on this, okay?" She reaches down and grabs both of his hands into hers, clasping them together and squeezing them."Okay," He says, "just you better solve it quickly, you worry me."

"Thank you!" She exclaims, suddenly leaning up to kiss his forehead, squeezing his hand. "You're not gonna regret this promise,"

He felt his face heat up and he looked away, pulling his hands away. "I better not,"

"Alright then, then let's..." She pauses for a few beats and looks up at him. "Do you think you can go back to sleep?"

He glances to the side and then back at her, with a lazy look to his face, he holds out his arms, gesturing to her with his finger to come towards her. "Warmth," A giggle escapes her lips and she wraps her arms around his neck, peppering his face with kisses as she pulls him down onto the bed, bouncing slightly when they land. She rolls onto her side, tangling her legs in his as she holds him closer, dropping the comforter over the two of them.

A small snort bubbles out of his chest as he tips his head back with a lazy grin. "That was cute," She giggles, pecking his cheek. His face lightly flushes and he nuzzles into the crook of her neck, smiling. "I love you," He mutters and her face flushes deeply. "I love you too," She mutters into his hair, holding him closer.

They both fall asleep peacefully that night, him being blissfully unaware of the events that the future held him.

-linebreak-

Giyuu wakes up slightly cold but with an amazing smell nearby. He lets out a groan, pulling the blanket even closer to him. Someone distantly giggles and he turns over in his sleep, grabbing the pillow and covering his head with the pillow. After a few beats of silence, the bed dips next to him and the pillow is taken off of his head and he's greeted with a room that's far too bright. He shields his eyes with his arm, a careful hand moves it off of his face, his wife smiling down at him, shielding his face from the bright light.

"Hello there," She greets in a sing-song voice, "I made your favorite," she smiles down at him, and through his bleariness, he flashes her a lazy smile. "You really didn't have to,"

"I know," She smiles, "but I wanted to," she cranes herself down to plant a kiss on his forehead which gets a small chuckle from him. "Why're you so domestic all of a sudden?"

"Can't I just love my husband?" She quirks a brow at him, "Well yes, but I have my reasons to be suspicious,"

With a sigh, she sits on the edge of the bed reaching downwards and cupping his cheek. "Why must you question everything?"

Without much thought he leans into her hand, pressing a small kiss to the palm before he looks up at her. "Is this about last night?" She sighs looking away, "Yes, you worry me, don't you know that?"

"Well, now you know how I feel," she resists the urge to scowl down at him.

"This isn't the first time," Frowning, she stops cupping his cheek but starts to pinch his cheek instead, lowering the tone of her voice as she speaks. "the first time was when you came back from a mission poisoned and completely out of it, you were dragging blood all over the floor, looking so fucked up and even then you still looked as lovely as you always did despite it all. You're lucky I have a medical degree or else you'd have been royally fucked before the medics arrived,"

"Kakushi," He states and she just rolls her eyes.

"Medics, kakushi, same thing," Giyuu shrugs, moving forward to wraps his arms around her waist and rests his head in her lap, halfway pouting up at her. "Can't you stay home with me?" She giggles and in response ruffles his already messed up hair.

"I'd love to but I'm busy," She leans down to kiss his nose, brushing his bangs out of the way. "maybe you can cook us dinner, and then we can eat it while watching a movie together. Like old times?"

"The old times where I still lived in the quietest apartment in the world yet it being in the city?" Her smile grew even brighter. "Yet it was always too quiet,"

"I can manage that but you should hurry to work, okay?" He lets out a hum and she smooths back his hair with a smile and he leans into the gesture. Her husband yawns, snuggling closer to his pillow, a bit of drool dripping down his chin as he settles back into sleep. Shinobu lets out a sigh, her shoulders drooping, she softly thumbed his cheek, drawing soft circles into the skin. Eventually, after a few beats of silence, she gets up and gets ready to leave, she's already in uniform after all.

She throws on a beige coat that goes down to her thighs that has a beige ribbon tied around her waist closing it, wrapping a navy scarf around her neck to fend herself from the cold, that's not mentioning the bag she has over her shoulder that has her personal items. She's wearing the standard uniform, and her coat hides it perfectly well, along with her thigh holster which holsters her weapon, usually, she leaves it at work but she forgot last night so now she's bringing it back and she'll leave it at work this time. It's frankly dangerous but thankfully nothing comes from it. She goes down to the subway, orders some canned coffee, and drinks it on her way to the agency, taking her usual route.

She makes her way out of the subway station, throwing the empty canned coffee in a bin, making her usual walk to the agency with one of her hands stuffed in her pocket and the other tightly gripping at the bag. The walk isn't that long, it takes around 15 minutes to get there but usually, she has her husband to talk with her, but he's at home either sleeping or starting breakfast. She hopes he's okay.

As she walks into the agency, she spots someone, another associate of hers's a very loud one at that both personality and speech-wise.

There you had Kyojuro Rengoku, the director or chief of cases related to flames - you could not refer to them as fire around him- type deaths, along with occasionally dabbling in other types when it came to joint cases but it'd be rare to find in him in cases that weren't halfway associated with flame in some sort. And currently, this man was in the lobby, from the looks of it waiting for someone, she had a couple of guesses who'd it be but that wasn't the point of her being here. She needed to hurry up and solve this case if what had happened last night was the cost of it.

So ignoring her associate she speed-walked past him, ignoring his most likely confused looks was safe until she reached the door to his elevator, ignoring the footsteps behind him until a hand warm hand rests on her shoulder, she resists the urge to sigh and turns around to face her friend, who's concerned. His brows are creased, as he looks down at her, concern swirling in his eyes.

"You look stressed Shinobu, did something happen?"

"Nothing much I..." She sighed, resting a hand on her cheek almost by reflex. "Can you keep a secret Rengoku-san?"

"From my knowledge, yes,"

"You know that case I've been on?" He curtly nods down at her. "The one about the hands, yes,"

"Well, you know how Giyuu-san has been real insistent on getting me off of the said case?" She wraps a strand of hair around her finger and curls it in a repeated motion, occasionally tugging at it.

"I'm aware," He folds his arms over his chest, with a curt nod. "Well, I figured out why last night,"

"Did something happen? Are you both okay?" He reaches out a hand towards her, hesitantly hovering it over her shoulder but not putting it on it, the concern is laced in his voice.

"Well I was okay but I can't say Giyuu-san is, see last night he had a nightmare pertaining to the case a-and now I'm starting to feel guilty about being on it b-because I- I know I'm just so close to solving it but it's hurting him an- and-" Her hands find their way to weave themselves in her hair and then pull, she's stuttering, fumbling over her words in a fit of panic. The what if's rattling around in her mind, what if something happened to Giyuu while she was away and- and-

"Shinobu! Deep breaths," Another hand finds its way to her shoulder and gives it a tight squeeze, his voice almost loudly echoing throughout the lobby, thankfully, snapping her out of her panic.

"Right right," She vigorously nods her head, breathing a few breaths out of her chest until she feels a bit better. Kyojuro, once noticing this, stops squeezing her shoulder but lets his hands rest on her shoulders still. "Now, what's going on with Tomioka?"

"Because I haven't quit the case it... It ended up affecting Giyuu-san and he had a nightmare and now I'm starting to think about quitting the case so he won't have to suffer like that."

"I understand your concern but do you want to quit the case?"

"No, but-"

"No but's," He exclaims, squeezing her shoulders. "you won't quit the case! Make sure you tell Tomioka he has my regards,"

"I'll be sure too- wait, what do you mean I'm not quitting the case?"

"If you don't want to quit it, you shouldn't, it's as simple as that,"

"But Rengoku-"

"No buts! Only confidence," He gives her a clap on the back and then presses the button to the elevator and enters in it in complete silence and waves goodbye to her, she waves back and the elevator closes and he's gone while she just stands there until it hits her.

Wait... Shinobu thinks, did he just steal the elevator?!

Shinobu ends up begrudgingly taking the stairs muttering under her breath, she really just had her elevator ride stolen by a guy who looks like a more fitter version of Guy Fieri but without the beard. Yeah, she'd say her day was going sorta well.

-linebreak-

A couple of hours later, Shinobu got a voicemail telling her that they'd be having a mandatory meeting in about 30 minutes. She finishes up whatever it is she's doing and arrives at the meeting 5 minutes early. About half the people are there when she arrives, she takes her seat, spying her husband's seat, as expected, empty. She props up her head on palms, an air of slight disinterest around her, as the others arrive, more chatter rises amongst them all with her occasionally adding to the conversation. By the time 30 minutes have passed, everyone but her husband has arrived, the chatter has lessened as they waited for their leader to arrive. 

Eventually, after a few minutes, the door opens, half expecting their leader to walk into the room, instead, a familiar raven-haired and sapphire-eyed man walks in, she grins as she watches him close the door behind her. Rising from her seat she waves at him, her worries about him not showing up being washed away, she loudly exclaimed:

"Hey what's up hot stuff I thought you weren't coming in for work today!"

Giyuu lets out a sigh despite how much his face flushes at the statement. "Until you learn how to start a normal conversation in front of people I will always end up wondering why I married you."

"But to answer your question, I got called for a mandatory meeting,"

"Aww, you didn't like my greeting?"

"Look I love you, but please never do that again," He pulls back his seat and slides into his seat, scooting forward slightly.

"You're late Tomioka," Obanai lowly mutters, slinking back in his chair slightly. "I wasn't planning to come into work today," He blandly answers, crossing his arms. "Took the usual route?" Shinobu asked, leaning onto the palm of her hands. He nodded, leaning back in his chair, his blush settling down.

"Knew it,"

"That's the same route we always take,"

"Yeah, and because I'm smart I didn't even need to spare a single thought to it  to know I was right."

"Says the woman who didn't know how to make toast,"

"You didn't know how to make toast?! That is literally the easiest fucking thing in the world!" Sanemi loudly questioned.

"Are you shaming me?"

"I'm shaming you, severely," Sanemi answered, "He's shaming you honey and you really do deserve it," Mitsuri tacted on with an unimpressed look. "I thought we agreed never to talk about it," He shot her a lazy smile, hidden underneath his hand. "Payback," He whispered and she had resisted the urge to frown at him until suddenly, an idea popped into her head.

"Did anyone ever tell you you look cute when you smile?" She asked with a smirk, in response, Giyuu let out a sigh again, covering his flushed face with his hands."Ohmygod,"

"What? I'm right!"

"Why did I marry you? It's like you're determined to embarrass me,"

"It's a goal,"

"Oh my god," Giyuu sighed again. "You knew what you were signing up for when you said 'I do', you know that!"

"What in the world are they babbling on about," Obanai said, giving a side-eye to the conversation between the married couple.

"At this point, I've tuned it out," Sanemi responded with a shrug. "I think it's sweet,"

"You think everything is 'sweet'! You think a mother bird coughing up her dinner to feed her baby birds is cute! That's not cute that's disgusting!"

"It is sweet!"

Muichiro lets out a sigh and sinks into his seat, "I keep forgetting how annoying you all are," and Kyojuro just slowly nodded along and sipped his drink as he watched the chaos unfold.

"Just wait until Oyakata-sama gets here," Kyojuro piped up and Muichiro nodded along as even more arguing amongst themselves arose. As the others argued the married couple found themselves in a conversation with each other, tuning out the others as they have a slight agreement and disagreement.
 
Shinobu lets out a sigh and leans back in her chair. "I need to take a break," She says and Giyuu nods in agreement. "That I can agree on,"

"And I know just what to do,"

"What's with that look?"

"You'll see," She grins, wrapping an arm around his shoulder pulling him close. "Oh god," The expression on his face darkens as her grins grow even larger.

"God can't help us now buddy,"

A/N: Mitsuri refers to her friends by things like honey and dear. Btw this was inspired by this randomly generated plot blurbed (Or at least part of said blurb):

Mangled hands have been turning up all over Earth and the inhabitants are scared. Ten murders in ten weeks, all committed with a spork, and still, nobody has a clue who the ruthless killer is.