Kotoko and Naoki walked into their front door in a haze of exhaustion, both of them worked in a hospital so they were familiar with the feeling but it wasn't something either of them got used too. They both took off their shoes and then worked on getting each other out of their coats, being too tired to do it themselves.

"I quit. Someone else can save lives." Noaki was dead serious when he said this.

Kotoko couldn't even find the strength to argue. "Go call. Tell them I quit too."

Noaki nodded and they both walked into a haze into their bedroom. If anyone said anything to them they wouldn't have known. The both of them had their eyes open but they were not awake.

"This is your fault. You were the one who told me to be a doctor."

"Since when do you listen to me?"

Both of them had seen a lot of death and pain the last couple of days. There had been a five car pile up and it had been gruesome and sad. A lot of people had died the last couple of days. It was days like today that they both wished they were different people. Kotoko had been done with her shift and dressed to leave, waiting for Noaki when he came to her and asked her if she could come with him and tell family that there nine year old boy hadn't made it through surgery. Most days you just had to keep the distance and know that you were doing good work and there were some days that life didn't give you a break.

Kotoko and Naoki both crawled into bed and they were both passed out before the lights could be turned off.

When Kotoko awoke she saw that Noaki was still asleep. She left him alone and went to get something to eat. It was two o'clock in the morning and everyone else was asleep but Yuuki. He was at the kitchen table working on his homework.

"Are the two of you recovered yet?"

Kotoko grimaced. "Just make sure Kotami doesn't bother us too much tomorrow. I think were just gonna spend the day in bed tomorrow."

"Was it that bad?"

A family of four had died in that pile up. Kotoko got sick to the stomach just thinking about it.

Kotoko decided to not even answer that and just went up to the bedroom with her goods. Kotoko came into the room, put the food on the bedside table and went to awake her husband of ten years. At any angle she was likely to get something thrown at her, but she was logical about this because if she didn't wake up her husband to eat he was going to wake up with a headache and in a bad mood. Naoki had worked twenty four hours straight and she didn't think he had eaten anything.

Kotoko turned off the lights and crawled into bed. It took her a minute for her eyes to adjust to the dark and when they did she just stared at her husband. Even with bad lighting he looked were days when she was just grateful to have him there. There were days when she hated him because he drove her up the wall, and there were the last couple of days where she fell in love with this man all over again.

Kotoko hadn't even seen her husband much the last couple of days but she knew what he must have seen. She knew that he had given a lot of people a lot of bad news and he had performed a lot of miracles. Kotoko also knew that every time he had a break he had hunted for her to make sure that she was doing okay. Everytime he thought she might look tired he had bullied another nurse to cover for her while she sat down for a minute. Every minute she had

needed him, he had been there because thats what he did for her.

Naoki didn't hound her and make sure she took care of herself, but when he did follow her like that it was because he was having a bad day. When Noaki was having a bad day he turned to her, and he made sure that she got whatever she needed. She figured it was his way of regaining control over his life, he couldn't force someone to live, he wasn't going to be able to get a breather, but he could make sure his wife to take care of herself when she was overdoing it.

Kotoko gently turned his covers down and crawled over to his side until she was on top of him and then she kissed his neck and ran her hand down his body. There were moments like this where being close to her husband was all she wanted. Kotoko wanted to be able to lose herself in her husband and revel in it because if she didn't she would break apart. Nothing else made her feel alive like this.

Kotoko always found it amusing that her husbands body woke up long before he did. Every time she got him to respond she was always a little amazed that for all her flaws, she could turn her husband on flawlessly. No one had ever sat her down and showed her how to please her own husband and no one had really shown him how to please her but over the years they had found out everything about the others body.

Some couple got married and their sex life dissolved into nothing, but they had just gotten better and better.

Naoki woke up with a groan and laughed. "There is no better way to wake me up and nag me about eating."

He knew her to well.

Kotoko grinned against his neck. " I don't know about that."

Kotoko started kissing down his chest and farther down until she found what she was looking for.

A little while later and two orgasms later, the two of them sat on the bed and ate crackers and cheese naked. Some might say that it wasn't the healthiest meal on the planet but it was easy, fast not to mention fun.

"So back to the problem at hand…"

Kotoko groaned at laughed. "Not this again."

Noaki looked gloomy, "This is a major issue and you avoid me at every turn."

Kotoko giggled. "You are making a small annoyance into an your food and hush."

"Shut up."

"That's what I'm trying to do." Kotoko replied smartly as she bit into the cracker.

They were going to have to change the sheets after this. She could already feel the crumbs invading.

Naoki shot her a look. "You know what I mean."

Kotoko nibbled on her cracker and grinned. A couple of weeks ago Kotoko had gotten out of the car…

and closed the car door on her finger.

The door had actually locked and Naoki had to unlock the door to she could could free herself. There had been tears and shouting and a fair amount of blood, but Kotoko hadn't broken anything and in the end she had been bandaged up in no time. Kotoko's ring finger hadn't looked pretty when it was all over with but it had survived and by some miracle she hadn't even lost the nail.

The only lasting effect this moment had had on was that in the whole time this was occurring, even in the moment of horror where they realized the car door had actually locked was that Kotoko hadn't sworn once.

It was something everyone had known about Kotoko. Everyone knew that Kotoko didn't swear, but in the moment her finger had been stuck Kotoko had panicked and in the moment of panic she had…

Almost sworn?

"Kotoko, really. No one is going to judge you. This is something you need to learn how to do." Noaki leaned over and took a crumb off her breast.

Kototko put her hand over her mouth so she didn't spit out her food. She laughed. "I know the words, I just don't say them."

"You almost swear and that's worse than swearing. You should be ashamed."

In the heat of the moment, Kotoko had been in distress, as any person would, and she had let loose a string of words…

"Son of a butt monkey."

"Butcher sticks."

"Darnit darnit darnit."

"Will someone open the flippin door?!"

And everyones personal favorite. "Sweater monkies."

Since that day everyone had tried to make her swear as soon as their daughter was in another room. There had been teasing, bets and bribes to see if she would do it and so far she couldn't bring herself to swear. She couldn't force herself to say something that was… wrong.

"I'm sorry, I knew it was a situation, but I had no idea this matter had to be addressed." Noaki put on his uptight face and Kotoko laughed again.

Since Noaki had turned into a dad he had turned into one of the least uptight people she knew. Everyone said that women were made to be parents, but Noaki was not only meant to be a parent, he lived to be one. Every year brought new changes in her husband that she marveled at. Noaki knew that to be a good parent meant that you had to get in touch with your inner child and he had almost perfected his inner child. By no means was he a stranger to her, but Noaki could play now in ways he hadn't been able to before.

"Where, for the love of god, did you get "Sweater monkies"? Noaki raised a brow and ate a cracker.

Kotoko shrugged and blushed. She wasn't sure she could explain herself and not sound foolish, but given the situation at hand she figured that it couldn't get much worse. "It's always felt wrong to swear and for a long time I never even thought to do it, but when I became a nurse there were just times that swearing felt appropriate. If I got to angry about a situation, if a patient peed on me… on purpose, if someone died. You name it. I don't handle it well so I… get so emotional that I….it just happened. I couldn't swear, but I just made stuff up."

And it stuck.

It wasn't like she went around speaking gibberish, but when she was in the heat of the moment and she wanted to cry, hit something, or yell, she just came up with silly things to replace the swear words that felt so wrong coming out of her mouth. It relieved her frustrations and sometimes it was just so silly that instead of letting the anger get a hold of her she would end up laughing at herself. It wasn't even like anyone heard her. Kotoko waited until she as in a private space and then… she vented.

It was healthy darnit.

"I understand where you are going with this whole idea, lets just try swearing for real for a chance."

"Why?"

Noaki grinned a little sheepishly. "Because I think it would turn me on to hear my wife speak dirty…?" he spoke this as if it were almost a question.

Kotoko had just gone down on her husband not that long ago, but the idea of swearing for him felt like the impossible.

Maybe this was something that she needed to fix.

She nodded.

It helped that Noaki thought it was a turn on.

"We'll start simple." her husband assured.

Kotoko couldn't help herself. "Aren't you the type of person who would think that swearing is stupid and it actually lowers a person's intelligence?"

Noaki raised a brow. "If your hand is ever locked in a door again, I will be the last person to judge you if you start swearing." Noaki shrugged, "And there is nothing wrong with dirty talk in the privacy of your own home with your own husband."

Kotoko grinned and blushed. For all the things she could do for her husband it was true that she could never talk dirty.

She figured that he had his motives and it was best to just go with it. If this was something he wanted, then what the… heck?

An hour later Kotoko had made good progress on overcoming her fear of saying something inappropriate.

"FUCK!"

"God thats the hottest thing I've heard you say in six months."

"What the hell do you think you're doing? You mouth was busy."

Noaki cracked up for longer than she wanted, she actually might have felt tears of joy land on her legs. "Yes, mam."

Maybe Noaki was onto something and really…

Who the hell cared at the moment. There were more important things going on.

A/N: I honestly have no idea where this one really came from. I wanted to write a short story about how Kotoko couldn't swear... and it came out a little dirtier that I was planning. :p Oh well. I know this is different from what I usually write, but I hope you still enjoy it.