““I had a nightmare,” She says with a very serious nod.” - House of Leaves, page 68.
Shuuhei’s woken up almost immediately by the muffled sound of pain. He’s a light enough sleeper, and the nature of the noise has him wide-awake. He’s out of bed in a second, skipping shoes in favor of Kazeshini before slipping out his room and into the hall.
It’s coming from their office. The light is out, but he can tell there’s still a candle flickering in there, casting shadows onto the wall. He creeps forward, unsure if there’s a struggle, if he needs to be quiet.
There’s no struggle. There’s not even anyone in there, except-- his eyes land on Kensei, curled over his desk, clearly asleep. There’s a mess of papers on the desk, on the floor. He’d managed to knock over his ink, and it drips down the side of his desk to a slowly-growing stain on the floor.
Kensei makes a pitiful noise of distress, and Shuuhei balks. This... this isn’t something he knew how to deal with. Maybe with Izuru, or Rangiku, or even Renji. But a Captain-- his Captain--
Kensei makes another noise, a little louder this time, and Shuuhei glances into the hallway before carefully closing the door. He would have to deal with this. It wouldn’t do to embarrass Kensei that much more by having someone else privy to his nightmare. He steps forward, carefully. “Taicho?” He says, his voice sounding too loud in the otherwise silent room. Kensei doesn’t wake up-- just buries his head further in his arms. Shuuhei clears his throat. “Taicho.” He repeats.
“--Shiro.” Kensei gives a muffled cry, and Shuuhei freezes. He shouldn’t be doing this. He doesn’t want to be the one dealing with this. He takes a breath. This is his job.
“Muguruma-taicho, wake up.” He says, daring to be a little louder. Nothing. He swallows, steadies himself before reaching out to lightly touch his Captain on his shoulder.
It happens frighteningly quickly. One moment, Kensei’s sleeping on the desk, and then he’s jerking awake with wild eyes, a hand darting out to smack Shuuhei away from him. It must be a little harder than intended, or Kensei’s aim was off, because Shuuhei finds himself on the floor with an aching jaw. It makes sense, he thinks dazedly. Sometimes people lash out after nightmares. He should have been more careful.
“...Hisagi?” Kensei sounds almost frightened, and Shuuhei feels terrible.
“Sorry.” Shuuhei says immediately, his eyes distantly focused on the candle sputtering across the room. He doesn’t know why this bothers him this much. It’s not like Kensei knew what he was doing. It’s not like-- well. It’s not like that.
“What are you doing out of bed?”
“I heard a noise.” His jaw is throbbing, but he climbs to his feel and avoids looking at his Captain. “I’ll go.” He thinks he sees Kensei nod out of his peripheral vision, but he doesn’t bother to check. Kensei’s probably embarrassed. He was woken up out of a nightmare, and hit his subordinate in fear. Shuuhei would be ashamed too, so he steps out as quickly as he can without running in order to give him some privacy. To let him collect himself.
Shuuhei drops Kazeshini by his bed before climbing back underneath the sheets. It all happened so quickly-- it almost feels like it didn’t happen at all, like it was some kind of strange dream. The darkness added to the unreality of it all, and Shuuhei takes comfort in knowing that they’re never going to have to talk about it, and they can just pretend none of it ever happened.