Work Text:
It was long after midnight, Michuru had found herself unable to sleep - her thoughts had been very distracting recently, and she knew that eventually, she would have to face it, but she feared what that meant.
When she opened the door to the ceiling, she saw a familiar figure right beside it, sitting quietly - It was Shirou, holding a mug, warped lazily in a dark blue blanket, looking aimless at the shy - his messy white hair moving ever so slightly with the wind.
"Can't sleep?"
"Not really" She let out a small chuckle, turning her eyes towards the sky - the night was still a dark blue, almost a black void with tiny dots, she wished it was late enough for the pinkish hue she longed for to appear "Can I join you?"
Shirou nodded while shuffling a bit to the side, opening the blanket, so she could sit beside him. It was a surprisingly cold spring night, the crickets were a bit quieter than most nights, almost too perfect to be spent awake - but alas, insomnia shows no mercy to those with heavy minds - the quiet took over their heads, the thoughts started to race towards the most harmful directions most of the time, stargazing normally helped him quiet down, but it can only do so much.
It had been some years working together, they knew their way around each other, he had been doing his best to open up to her. However, It was harder than he thought, it was a slow process, sometimes irritating as he found himself in and out of his comfort zone - progress had been made nonetheless - but she still had questions.
"Shirou." She rested her head in her knees "How did you... deal with everything that happened to you?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, how did you deal with memories of Nivasyl and the stuff with the mayor?" He went quiet, his gaze dropped to the ground "Ah, I mean- You don't have to answer!! I just-"
"I really didn't, at first." He cut her anxious ramblings short "I didn't know what to do, or what I had done - nor anyone to talk to..." A heavy sigh came out of him, he looked back at her setting his mug on the ground in front of them "For a long time, I was very aimless, and I think I blocked a lot of it out of my memory. I refused to be Silver Wolf before meeting Barbara, and I during the years, I just- I just kept this hatred, boiling inside. Days came and went, and I tried to just, shove it aside, but it became harder and harder every day."
"How so?"
"The memory lingered, and It wasn't anything specific cause sometimes, It was just there, in the background. It made it harder to go back to normal, no matter what I did my body was always alert." He hugged his lower torso, he often did so when uncomfortable "It seemed to never get easier, there were times when it felt like that I could deal with it better, but then it seemed to hit me in a wave all over again."
"Shirou, you don't need to continue if you don't want to."
"I know. I- I never really talk about this, It's... refreshing to take this off my back." He finished the coffee, setting it back on the ground in front of them as he shuffled the surrounding blanket closer towards him "However, It did get easier, It took time and- and It was incredibly tiring. I avoid most things that remind me of it, but sometimes It creeps in, especially at night."
"I see." Her soft-spoken words lingered a bit "Did you ever get actual help?"
"Not really, Barbara has been talking about it with me recently, so I might."
"That's good." Her soft smile was quickly gone, as she sunk deep into thought again "Is it why you are here? The nightmares, I mean."
"Maybe." He teased, that was the limit of where questions about himself were going in the moment "So, why are you here?"
"Oh, well..." The question took her by surprise, her eyes looked towards him, moving quickly away from him "My mind just doesn't seem to let me rest lately."
He understood what the non-answer meant and stopped his questioning, he felt more comfortable with the silence in a way; the sky had started to change - the strokes of purple that followed later by the bright pink of the morning. and the early birds began their singing - rest was a long-gone concept for both.
In the next morning, to Shirou's surprise, Michuru was the first to meet the mayor. She normally only stopped by to talk about what was going on in Anima City, however, nothing had come up these days, not that he knew.
He leaned against the wall beside the office, refusing to interlude nor to spy, but his mind kept wondering whatever it could be:
Maybe It was Alan.- That would make sense after the scandal he was sent to prison and the Sylvasta stocks had been in the decline, however, he still had more than enough money to buy himself a 'get out of jail' card and even then, he was immortal, but he would know if it was Alan. - Maybe Nazuna? - They often had, in his eyes at least, meaningless fights. However, nothing of the sort had come up - Maybe It was...
"Goodmorning, Ogami." Barbara's voice stopped his thought process short, he turned towards her, eyes wide "How are you?"
"Oh, Mayor, good-"
"How long you were here? You weren't listening, were you?" Cut short again, this time the bombarding questioning coming from her annoyed him more than anything, after all this time why would he?
"No, don't be stupid." It came out colder than he expected "I was waiting for-"
"Stupid?!"
"Stop talking over me. You child."
Barbara sighed with a slight chuckle, the usual routine of bickering back and forth was in place and the day was cheerful again - even if It greatly annoyed Koichi, who preferred the silence around the office.
The day went back to normal, Shirou and the Mayor went to finish the paperwork and to settle down how to start letting humans into the city, and how the population would take to it after everything that happened. He got out of the chair to look out of the window as usual - he couldn't quite concentrate yet, nor he wanted to think about letting humans inside the city. It was confusing to him, his relation towards humans had changed after all, but he couldn't bring himself to trust them yet - nor let them inside the city he had working so hard to protect - yet he knew It wasn't all of them, and he should just let go, but alas: Easier said than done.
"What is on your mind, Ogami?" The mayor turned her chair towards him, holding her pen close to her face as she looked over the city with wishful eyes "You're quieter than usual."
"Am I?"
"is it Kagemori?" She snapped back, his stoic cold persona never really intimidated her that much.
"Partly." He sighed, leaning against the wall "The new plans for the city aren't helping, either"
"You know that-"
"You act like it's rational." His half-closed eyes glared towards her "I won't stop it, but you can't force me to be happy with it."
"Calm down." She left out a slight chuckle "Why are you so cold towards me, Ogami?"
"Since when you and Michiru are keeping secrets?"
"Since you kept secrets from her, Ogami." She looked back towards the window as she walked towards him "I know you are worried, but she will open up about it."
"I know." He sighed, relaxing his shoulders and pushing his neckless a bit to the side "She has been acting weirdly lately, I've grown a bit weary."
"That's rich coming from you" She leaned her head back to see him avert her eyes, laughing "Why don't you talk to her after she comes back home?"
What else could he do? He wasn't going to kidnap her again, and either way, he couldn't spend that much time thinking over it, work was waiting. The day had been unusually long, he and the mayor had been going over and over her speech, changing bits and pieces so it would cause less of an outrage - and that would bring more approval and funding from the government.
It was a bit too much for his head, over the years the laws kept changing and being updated in ways that made it less and less clear - especially towards Beastmen - It felt like getting funding and general approval was like walking on eggshells, but it had to be done, there would be less bloodshed that way - or at least they hope it would.
When walking home at the end of the day, he had received a message from Michuru:
(I'll be home by 7! Please meet me on the roof. (´∀｀•))
This was somewhat unusual: he was normally the last one to get home - either way, he hurried his pace. When he arrived at the roof, it was not Michuru to be there, but Nazuna:
"What are you doing here?"
"Shouldn't be me asking you?" He puffed, walking towards the handrail and leaning against it, looking over the city "Michuru called you here as well?"
"Yes." She mumbled, walking close to him and looking leaning her back towards the city "Well, that makes me a bit less nervous. I thought she was going to break up with me."
"Did you guys fight again?"
"No." She looked up, the sky a mixture of a warm oranger, purple and pink, she rolled her eyes towards him, with a mischievous smile "But she has been acting distant these days, and last time that happened I was pretending to be you."
"Thank you for the reminder." His cold eyes met hers, resting his head on his arms "It's not only towards you - She has been like that for a while, yesterday while we were talking she was like that as well."
The wind was starting to get cold again, maybe it was the end of spring after all - he had a bad time keeping up with the seasons, like most things for him it started to mush together after a while. The old Silver wolf statue in front of the house had been transformed into a monument representing all Beastman, it had been finally finished with the help of Nazuna and the tours she had been doing for a while.
Suddenly, Kuro flew towards his shoulder as the sound of the door opening, he turned around to see Michuru at the door, holding an envelope in her hands - her eyes looked tired, and her smile was weak.
"Michu!" Nazuna ran towards her, hugging her tightly - almost taking both of them to the ground "Are you okay?"
"Nazuna, I'm okay! I just needed to talk to both of you" Her voice was low, as she looked over to Shirou "And what about you guys?"
"We were worried about you." Shirou walked towards them "What is it that you need to tell us?"
"Oh, well. So, I went to the old Medi center today-" She felt his cold stare towards her '- because I had noticed something and the only place with resources to check it out was there, besides Shirou, there are only Beastman there nowadays"
"Hmph, still..."
"What was it?" Nazuna cut his grumping short, and instead of answering, Michuru handed her the envelope:
Patient: Kagemori, Michuru Age: 23 years old Sex(BIO): Female
Reason for the appointment: Patient appears to not have aged since the transfer of Beastman blood ( Beastman Disease)
Procedure: Cytologic evaluation of patient cells.
Diagnosis: Upon inspection, the patient cells replicated differently, they could absorb dead cells to improve their life span: this causes the body of the patient to not show any aging (looking to be the same age of the blood transfusion [18]). However, their body still shows weakness to physical damage.
"What does...-"
"You're immortal." Shirou exclaimed, looking towards her, wide-eyed " You are both immortal."
Nazuna went silent, her brows furrowed as she looked at the paper, grasping it with force. Shirou icy blue eyes looked back and forth towards the paper and both of them - How could this happen? Was such a change possible with the Beastman blood? Why now, and not when the mayor had analyzed her cells? Was it developed over time? His thought pattern was geared towards the logic, as always, and it was broken as he noticed Nazuna tears dropping towards the paper. He was used to being an immortal, so much that he hadn't realized this meant much more to them than to himself.
"I.. I don't..." Nazuna let the paper fall, in rage she threw a punch towards the door on her side "I DIDN'T ASK FOR ANY OF THIS!"
Shirou immediately stopped her, grabbing her arms towards her torso in a forceful hug, as he smelled the slight blood scent from the scratch on her hand - It was all very sudden, Michuru had taken a step back as she processed everything.
"Calm d-"
"Calm down?! Calm down?!" She cut him off in a scream, turning her head towards him " That's easy for you to say, isn't it? You are used to seeing everyone dropping dead so why would you care?! Let me go already!"
"Not until you stop hurting yourself" He mumbled quietly "You read the diagnosis, you can still get hurt."
"I don't care!"
"Well to your surprise, I - We do." He answered looking back towards Michuru, still frozen in place - she was scared, of the reaction, of the future - He knew how overwhelming it was, what the now infinite future held towards them.
They stayed put for a while until Nazuna stopped struggling, as soon as he let her go, she fell to the ground - her crying was loud and confused, like a lost child in a crowd - Michuru and Shirou sat beside her, Kurocoming shortly after. Shirou, in a rare gesture of warm, warped both of them on his coat.
It took a long while until she calmed down, with Michuru hugging her side and Kuro on her lap - Shirou sat against the wall, still looking over the paper and them.
"How certain is this?" Shiro broke the cold silence that had taken place "The diagnosis, that is."
"They are still doing tests, but physically I haven't aged." Her quiet voice sounded incredibly tired, looking back at him without letting Nazuna go - partly out of worry, partly after of comfort "I'll have to return there."
"How are you so calm about this?" Nazuna spoke, sniffling still "How are you not freaking out?"
"The shoe hasn't dropped yet" She smiled awkwardly, "I thought it was just me overthinking things, but having it confirmed is- is terrifying, I can't quite grasp it"
"Is that why you asked about Nivasyl?" He mumbled, looking towards the sky "Are you afraid to deal with things like it? And, is that why you were at the mayor's office?"
Michuru noded quietly, finally letting go of Nazuna, hugging her legs and looking over the sky herself - It was dark already, the stars had started to glimmer ever so slightly and they could hear dinner being prepared in the house.
It was quiet, there were no birds or planes, the only sound was coming from inside the house and their own thoughts; the city was starting to slow down, people going back to their houses, meeting their families after work, settling down for the day.
"I'm..." Nazuna broke the silence "I'm sorry, Shirou."
"Don't worry." He closed his eyes, breathing deep "I know how terrifying it is"
"I- I don't know what to do" Michuru murmured right afterward "How do we, like, deal with this?"
"Slowly" He looked over them "and together."