Work Text:
They say that it’s a privilege to be able to grow old. In the past, people died young because of disease, war, famine, or just about any horrible tragedy that can be named. In the Middle Ages of Europe, you were expected to live to your thirties. If you got past forty, you’d likely have a good chance of living two more decades.
With the decline in diseases, and the decline of infant mortality, most people are expected to live until their seventies or higher.
Aging is beautiful. Every wrinkle tells a story—the ones around the mouth and eyes say that you’ve smiled and laughed a lot. Every gray hair is beautiful, some comparing it to the starlight. The aching body, while unfortunate, is a symbol of the privilege to age in the first place.
When Sigma first joined the Armed Detective Agency, everyone was young. Even Fukuzawa in his forties was still considered young by some. With Ame-no-Gozen defeated and Dostoevsky nowhere to be seen, life was simple. Smiling was as normal as the changing seasons.
Sigma did missions. She never killed, though there was some part in the back of her mind very much tempted to do so sometimes. There were missions that left her barely alive, and she’d miraculously recover without the use of Yosano’s ability. There were mundane missions that involved saving a cat from a government building. It was all fun. She had people that loved her unconditionally.
Time went on. Spring was beautiful, the cherry blossoms never getting old. Summer was warm and rainy, but full of joy. Autumn was underrated when spring was a thing—the oranges, reds, and yellows were her favorite. Winter had a frigid cold, but was when she felt the closest to everyone.
Five years passed.
Fukuzawa retired when he was fifty—a bit earlier than average, but years and years of fighting took a toll on the body. Kunikida took his place as president, which felt very much deserved. He was a truly worthy man.
Sigma remembers the teasing that went down in the office when Kunikida started getting gray hairs the day after taking over—he was twenty-seven—but far from the first in the office to go gray, aside from Fukuzawa. The silvery strands looked natural on Yosano and Ranpo.
(“Heyyy, Sigma! What do you think is going to happen when you start graying? Your purple side is gonna turn white too, maybe?” Dazai had asked, twirling a strand of her hair in his fingers. While he wasn’t graying yet, he had laughter lines. How wonderful.
“I don’t know,” Sigma answered dumbly, watching as Kunikida plucked out gray after gray from his hair and tossed it in the trash. “It’d be funny, wouldn’t it?”)
Sigma suspected something was wrong when she looked in the mirror one night, ten years after joining the agency, and realized she hadn’t changed at all. Not a wrinkle despite all her laughter, no silvery strands in the lilac side of her hair. No aches.
She was no fool, she knew her origins, she had her theories. She’s a product of the Book, it felt like her creator forgot to mention that she could age. Or maybe the creator specified that she couldn’t. She cried horribly that night, because she had people she belonged with, but she’d have to watch them all go.
She looked at her beloved friends and saw corpses. She could imagine what urns they’d be sitting in one day, what speeches she’d make at memorials, what flowers she’d pick for each of them. Peach blossoms sounded fitting for Dazai’s.
(‘They’ll die one day,’ she had thought to herself while out drinking with Chuuya and Dazai. She covered up her mental breakdown by saying it was the alcohol freaking her out. They were just as freaked out by her outburst.)
People caught on, of course. They saw her not change at all. The looks of sympathy that everyone gave her was sickening, but she kept a straight face and had her twentieth breakdown of the week behind closed doors. People started leaving her random gifts, things to remember them by. They all sat in a spare room in her apartment, the apartment she had purchased with all her dirty money she saved from her days of the Decay of the Angel.
She saw all the birthdays, all the weddings, watched some of them have kids of their own. She realized she’d be attending the funerals of their children too and got horribly depressed, refusing to get close to any of them to prevent heartache.
Fukuzawa died first. Aged seventy-two. He left her his katana.
Then Chuuya. Aged fifty-five. Apparently, dying so young was a result of Corruption after so many uses. He left her with one of his hats.
Then Ranpo. Aged sixty-one. He left her with his glasses.
Then Yosano. Aged sixty-one as well. She left her with her butterfly hairpin.
Then Atsushi and Akutagawa on the same day. The former was fifty-eight, the latter was sixty. Noble sacrifices to save the city despite their ages. They gave her a white tiger plush and a ceramic figurine of a bird.
Then Kunikida. Aged sixty-six. The role of president went to someone Sigma doesn’t care about. He left her with his notebook of ideals, worn from age.
Then Tanizaki. Aged sixty-three, apparently a tragic death. He left her with a ceramic cat figurine.
Then Kenji. Aged sixty-three. An accident. He left her with his straw hat.
Then Kyouka. Aged sixty-seven. She left her with her flower pins.
Then, there was Dazai. Ironically the last to go despite his past suicidal tendencies. Those stopped of course, because he healed, got better. Now Sigma looked in the eyes of the man who brought her here in the first place. The hands that held her as they danced down the halls of Meursault were unrecognizable, his hair was all silver—it was heartbreakingly beautiful.
(“How can you even handle this?” Sigma had weakly asked, looking out the window. The sunset was beautiful, full of peaches and purples. She couldn’t look him in the eyes because she fears she might cry. She doesn’t want him to worry about her in his last days.
Dazai laughed, still a wonderful sound. She loved hearing her friends laugh. “Honestly? I’m not handling it well. I always thought it would be me first.”
‘That's what everyone else thought,’ she wanted to say. She bites the inside of her cheek, a lump in her throat. After him, there’s nobody.)
Then Dazai. Aged seventy-nine. He left her with his bolo tie and coat.
It had been fifty-seven years since Sigma joined the Armed Detective Agency, and everyone was gone. She cried and cried and didn’t notice how long she cried until she checked her phone and realized four days had passed. How horrible to not notice the passing time since she didn’t need to eat.
Then there’s the other people in her life that are gone. The ones she used to like—or reluctantly like—also not immune to the marching of time. Bram and Kamui were long gone before she joined the agency. Gogol is absolutely gone by now, he’s just a human.
Then there’s Dostoevsky.
She knows they’re in the same boat as her. She saw the memories, she saw them die and take their killer’s place. They’ve lived for who knows how long, and are still likely roaming the world to this day. Back then, she never understood them—never understood their distance from everyone else. They respected her, absolutely, but the moment they were in different rooms from each other, any semblance of a relationship went away.
Sigma finds herself missing Fyodor.
It’s been a year since the last original member of the agency died.
Sigma considered suicide many times, but knew it wouldn’t work. She’s survived injuries she absolutely shouldn’t have in the past, so there’s probably some sort of regenerative abilities that would save her.
Sigma wears Dazai’s coat and bolo tie. It would feel wrong not to, considering they’re especially precious—clothes. Everything else can sit nice and occasionally dusted on her shelf. Her usual outfit has been relatively unchanged throughout the decades—the brands only changing as they come and go.
A black, long-sleeved button up, with flowing sleeves, because she missed the flowing sleeves of her old outfit. A white suit vest, because she missed the white of her outfit. Black dress pants, nothing to write home about. Black socks, black shoes. Dazai’s sand-colored trench coat, probably one of the dozens he owned because of them constantly being ruined in injuries or river dives. Dazai’s bolo tie with an opal gemstone. She still wears the same earrings she was ‘born’ with, the only original trace of her old self from before joining the Armed Detective Agency.
“Sigma, someone’s asking for you,” says a younger lady that she hasn’t bothered to remember the name of. Attachment will only bring pain. God, she probably sounds like Fyodor. She never thought she’d see the day when actually she understood them.
Sigma sets down her pen and turns her attention to the voice. Ah, she recognizes the lady now. The daughter of one of the kids that Atsushi and Akutagawa adopted. “The waiting room?” she asks, because she should at least be polite instead of just getting up and going.
“The waiting room,” the lady echoes, nodding. She then scurries off to her own desk.
With that, Sigma gets up from her desk, the same desk she’s had for fifty-eight years. The inner drawer has everyone’s initials carved in it—they did that after they came to the realization that Sigma couldn’t age. It was just another thing for her to remember them all with.
There, seated on the couch (not the same one that was there when she joined, that one got destroyed when a dog broke in) was them . Fyodor Dostoevsky, untouched by time, like always. The same shoulder-length black hair, purple eyes, dark circles. Bitten nails and the exactly same white outfit and black coat, it’s as if nothing has changed in the last fifty-eight years.
Sigma never thought she’d be so happy to see someone that tried to kill her. To be fair, she tried to kill them back, but can you really be co-workers without a few murder attempts? “Why are you here?” she asks, stiffly.
“It’s nice to see you again,” Fyodor says, ignoring the stiff tone. Their eyes scan up and down Sigma’s outfit, zeroing in on the bolo tie. “It’s very amusing to be able to stroll in here and not be yelled at.”
“I’ll gladly yell at you,” Sigma says, reaching towards her—Dazai’s—no, her coat’s inner pocket, where she keeps her gun. “Or I could shoot you.” it would be a win, at least for her. She doesn’t care what Fyodor does with her body after, she just wants it to all be over.
Fyodor lets out an amused chuckle, tilting their head. Their hair falls over their cheek, and this is a gesture Sigma had seen a lot during their interactions in the past. Some things just never change. “I would prefer it if you didn’t. I’d like to have a proper conversation with you.”
Sigma takes a seat next to them. In the past, they’d always be across from each other, whether that be at a conference table or when standing. To be at their side is odd. Oddly comforting. “Why are you here?” she asks, genuinely curious. Because really, what business do they have here?
“I had something else in mind. Again, I’ve seen it all before. Get up, we’re going to walk.” Fyodor says, rising from their seat. Sigma follows, the blind obedience still ingrained in their mind.
The two take the elevator down to the first floor without a word. They could finally fit more than one person at a time after a renovation around the time that Kunikida took over. The air is cold as they exit the building, it being spring.
“There used to be a café here,” Fyodor says, eyes flitting to the building they just stepped out of. Change was natural, but seeing all the things that defined Sigma’s first years on the ‘light side’ vanish, no hints of what was there before, was just as sickening as the emptiness.
“I know,” she says stiffly. The small talk is horrible, and she’s tired of thinking. She should just shoot Fyodor now.
“I ate there a few times during my stay in Yokohama,” they continue, starting to walk away. They gesture for her to follow, and she does.
“I know. You mentioned that before,” she says once more.
“I liked their tea… unfortunately the curry was always too spicy for my taste.”
Sigma, despite her bitter mood, can’t help but laugh quietly. “Too spicy? Even babies that ate there had better tolerance.”
Fyodor’s eyes crinkle in amusement at the jab. Crinkles that would turn into laughter lines eventually on any other person. But like herself, they’re untouchable by the passage of time, by aging, by the things that make living so beautiful. Sigma wonders if they’re miserable too, or if that’s just something she’s imagining to make herself feel better. “It’s a pleasure to see you’ve become more outspoken,” they say.
Because the last time she raised her voice at them, it ended up with her getting stabbed, stuck in memory hell, and never seeing them again. In such a short amount of time, Dazai had changed her fundamentally—he pissed her off so much in the less than half hour they knew each other that she stopped letting people walk all over her. “You know who to blame for that.”
“Of course. Never a boring day with him.”
Sigma has a vague idea of where they’re going—they know the city like the back of their hand, after all. A short twelve-minute walk away from the agency is a series of parks by the seaside, the most stunning sight of the season aside from the cherry blossoms being the Future Rose Garden.
“Are we going to the rose garden?” she asks anyway, tentatively. She never knows with them.
“I’ve heard that it’s a beautiful place this time of year,” they respond.
“Is this you trying to make me feel better? By showing me the things I’ve seen a hundred times before?”
Fyodor pauses their steps for a moment, and turns to face Sigma. “I am not here to kick you while you’re down. I’m here as one of the few people in the world that can understand your situation.”
“Aside from Ueda,” tacks on Sigma. She reluctantly moves to stand at their side instead of trailing behind like a lost puppy. When was the last time she could call herself something stupid like a lost puppy?
“Ah, yes, Ueda,” there’s a fond look in their eyes as they think about them. While she never got to meet Ueda herself, she saw way too much about their relationship for comfort when stuck in memory hell all those years ago. “I’m not sure of her whereabouts, to be entirely honest. A shame, she would’ve been a wonderful addition to this pitiful reunion.”
“I’d rather not have you two in the same room,” Sigma mutters, her gaze flitting to the floor. There were many benefits to her wonderful memory—she’d never forget even the smallest of interactions with her loved ones—but also, my god, she could never burn out of her mind what she saw between Ueda and Fyodor.
“Understandable,” Fyodor replies, continuing to walk. A silence falls over the two, not comfortable, but not uncomfortable either. “I suppose I can say the actual reason why I came here now of all times. Gogol died last week. I took the first flight here after I discovered the news.”
Nikolai’s dead. Unsurprising. He's only human. The last connection to her old life—she considered the Decay of the Angel her ‘old life’ now. And if he died last week, that would’ve made him eighty-four. Sigma lets out a shaky exhale. In the grand scheme of things, he’s the reason why she ended up joining the agency. She thought about that a lot, actually. “You kept in touch?” she quietly asks.
“No. I got curious and got my hands on medical records. I just happened to find out his death was quite recent.”
At least he didn’t change. Sigma hopes he found whatever it was he was looking for. A gentle breeze starts, the sea now visible on the horizon, both their coats billowing behind them. She’s gotten so used to the scent of salt in the air that she doesn’t register that iconic sea breeze smell anymore.
The walk seemed to go by fast when talking. Sigma quickens her pace to be directly at Fyodor’s side. “You’ve lost everyone from that stage of your life, too,” she says with a sigh. A whole generation of people they were once at war with were gone—but also the people they fought side-by-side with. Formerly or otherwise.
“They’re just more people to add to the list. Pushkin died in jail. Goncharov apparently died in an accident. I kept my eyes on Oguri and Hawthorne as well despite them being my former associates. Hawthorne died of natural causes shortly after his lover. Oguri also died of natural causes,” they say, an unreadable expression on their face.
Just more people to add to the list. Would she end up thinking like that one day? She holds her tongue, letting silence fill the air as they walk. She doesn’t know if she feels better or worse so far.
It being spring, the Future Rose Garden is a stunning sight. Bushes of white, orange, reds, and all the shades of pink are scattered about the park. Sigma’s favorite part has always been the archways of roses and the pale wood benches beneath them. The two make their way to one of the benches beneath the arches—the one that she always sat with her friends on, coincidentally—and take a seat.
“This place is nice. I’m surprised I never came here when I was staying in Yokohama,” Fyodor comments, filling the silence since Sigma isn’t speaking a word. She doesn’t know what to say. She never thought she’d see them again, never thought that she’d so easily be able to talk to somebody like them again. “This is going to be your forever, Sigma. Don’t you have any questions for someone who has seen it all before?”
Sigma doesn’t even have to ask what they mean because she knows. Immortality, obviously. It’s her forever. She can’t escape the vicious cycle of loving someone, watching them age, watching them die, burying them. All the movies make immortality seem wonderful…
“What was the scariest part?” Sigma settles on asking. There’s millions of questions in her mind that she literally has all the time in the world to ask. But what shook up the great Fyodor Dostoevsky, the seemingly untouchable being? Untouchable by time, yes, but are they untouchable by emotions? Were they born desensitized, or did they cry into their pillow like she did?
Fyodor looks up at the arches instead of in her eyes. They’d normally always meet their eyes.
“Immortality itself isn’t what frightened me. It was forgetting my mother’s face. Photographs didn’t exist at the time. I wasn’t an artist, I had no sketches, and our household didn’t have any portraits. And I can’t look at myself in the mirror to remind myself of her, for I am undeniably my father’s child. It’s him that I see.”
Ah. Sigma’s lucky. Well, no, not lucky, just luckier. She has photographs, videos, and the personal belongings of everyone she’s ever loved in her apartment’s spare room. She couldn’t forget them even if she tried. But she doesn’t want the memories, she wants them . She wants to be able to call their numbers and hear their voices on the other end.
(When Dazai had finally passed, she sat in bed, repeatedly calling his number to hear the voicemail. He hadn’t changed it in decades, it was still his youthful voice. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine everyone still being young. She felt as if she could relive that first week, the one where she realized she finally had unconditional love.)
Maybe after all the catching up, she can still shoot them and just be done with it all. Being alone is miserable, being around the one person who understands is miserable.
Noticing the silence, Fyodor continues. “I travel the world. I live in one location for some amount of years, then move on to the next location. I never linger around long enough to see the adults visibly age. It will hurt less for you to avoid attachment.”
Is Sigma making Yokohama a prison? What does she even do outside of work? Sit in her spare room, reliving memories, going to the few places left unchanged by the passage of time. She’s not doing anything new. She wakes, eats, works, eats, stares at walls, stares at the ceiling, then sleeps. It continues, and it could be her life forever if she wanted.
Finally, she speaks. The words escape her lips before she can really even think about them. “Can I go with you?”
Fyodor blinks in surprise. Visible surprise, which is jarring. Maybe they’re letting themselves appear more open to make her comfortable. Maybe it’s real, maybe it isn’t. Even if it’s fake, she lets herself enjoy it. “Of course. It’s been a long time since I had a travel partner.”
Sigma’s somewhat content mood is immediately killed off, because Ueda was the last traveling partner she knows of from the memories she saw. If she lets any sort of relationship like that happen between her and Fyodor, she’s truly gone mad. Despite the nausea at those damn memories and the frustration that she can’t bite her tongue, she speaks. “I’ll want to come back here eventually.”
“Naturally.”
“And if I end up not liking traveling, you’ll take me back here immediately.”
“Anything for you.”
It’s not like there’s anyone that’ll miss her if she leaves—that’s the one good thing about her keeping distance from all her friend’s children. They certainly won’t care that their weird family friend who looks the exact same in every photo is gone. There really is nothing to lose.
Sigma watches as a white rose falls from one of the arches and onto the ground with an uneventful and quiet ‘thud’. The park is quiet, nobody there except for them.
Sigma packed her photographs, her clothes, and her gun. The gun wasn’t there for self-defense—it was there so she could just shoot Fyodor if the idea of going home or traveling suddenly stopped sounding appealing.
She doesn’t pay too much attention to the passage of time—all she knows is that it has been less than a year. They’ve gone to a few countries, seen the sights, seen the landmarks that people only get to see once in their life. It wasn’t Fyodor’s first time seeing it, and it would be the first of many times Sigma has seen them if she chooses to stick around.
“It’s been seven months,” Fyodor says suddenly. They’re sitting at the top of a hill in some snowy country—Norway. White snow blankets the terrain, but bundled up in warm clothing, it feels like nothing. In the distance is the small village they’ve been staying at for the last week, the warm lights of the windows glowing and acting as a beacon towards their temporary home.
“I haven’t been paying attention to the time,” Sigma says quietly, hugging her knees to her chest. The snow shifts and crunches beneath her as she shifts.
Over the months they’ve been traveling, it feels like she’s gotten closer to Fyodor. Gone is the professionalism that clouded their relationship when they were co-workers. Friends? They’re just friends now. Equals, something she never thought she’d imagine being able to say.
The gun is still in her pocket, but buried beneath so many layers of clothing that it’d be inconvenient to pull it out. Not that she wants to kill Fyodor—that would mean herself—at the moment. It’s just comforting to have.
“That’s good,” Fyodor replies, brushing snow off their shoulders. “It all goes by so quickly. I only notice it’s the new year when I see all the celebrations.”
Sigma loved new year’s back at home. It was a quiet and intimate holiday, hearing a bell toll one-hundred and eight times on a television as she ate and chatted with her friends. They’d watch the first sunrise together.
“We should go somewhere that does fireworks for the new year,” Sigma suggests. She’s seen the holiday celebrated like that in movies—it’s loud, full of cheers, new year’s kisses. She only got a taste of fireworks during the summer, and she loved it.
“It’ll keep that in mind,” There’s silence for a moment. Then Fyodor turns and faces Sigma. Their hair falls over their cheek as they tilt their head, a gesture she’s grown fond of by now. “If we had stayed on the same side back then, I would’ve courted you. I was always fond of you.”
Sigma chokes on air for a moment, awkwardly coughing into her sleeve. What a damn random thing to say when they were just planning their next destination. Fyodor watches her cough sputter, their eyes crinkling with amusement.
“Courting?” Sigma eventually repeats after regaining her composure. She hates how her heart feels like it’s exploding—it’s like the adrenaline she gets on missions. Her nervous system can’t tell the difference between near-death and a simple and casual confession, it seems. “Courting. You mean, ask me out?”
“That’s the more modern way one would say it, yes.”
“There’s nothing stopping you now,” she manages to say, and it’s hard to pretend to be indifferent. She never thought much about a lover, especially after learning about her immortality. Before that, it was random little crushes on Sky Casino patrons, maybe a tiny one on Dazai, and maybe if she stopped denying it she’d admit she crushed on Fyodor a little back then, too.
There would be no heartbreak for them—at least not from death—a breakup would be awkward, since the chances of them seeing each other again would be low, but never zero.
(The breakup she saw in the memory hellscape between Fyodor and Ueda was messy. She still can’t believe it was Fyodor who initiated it—they seriously fumbled such a gorgeous woman.)
“You’re right,” Fyodor says, scooting closer. Is that a hint of hesitation in their body language? “If I were to ‘ask you out’, would you say yes?”
“Of course I would,” Sigma answers easily. Despite only being ‘alone’ for over a year and a half, the need for some companionship, romantic or not, is very high.
She flinches when a cold hand touches her cheek and twirls a strand of her hair between a finger. She leans into the touch, and she can barely hear the quiet chuckle that escapes the other person’s lips. Fyodor looks at her with such an expression that her breathing stops for a moment.
“Oh my god, are they going to kiss me?” Sigma thinks to herself, feeling a bit hysterical. She has a gun. She has a gun and can just shoot them right now and not deal with this. But the layers of clothing! She doesn’t move an inch, but her mind is still rushing with frantic and confused thoughts. “People kissing right after confessing is a real thing?!”
“You’re so tense,” Fyodor says gently, snapping her out of her thoughts. Their faces are so close to each other that their noses are brushing. Breathing is so, so difficult—but the breathlessness is somehow a wonderful feeling. “Do you really want this?”
“I do!” Sigma says quickly, finally taking in a breath of air like it's the last she’ll ever take, shaking her head. “I’m just confused. I’m just—”
“—surprised?” they finish for her.
Sigma slowly nods. “Surprised,” she echoes. “It’s an understatement.”
“My confession is very sudden, I understand. It’s difficult for my feelings to vanish, especially when it’s regarding people who stand out.”
Sigma gets it, she really does. They don’t need to explain themselves. If she was in their shoes, she’d have feelings for a fellow immortal being, too. “You don’t need to explain anything,” she’s never gotten used to hearing them so open about their feelings. Maybe something shifted when they unleashed Ame-no-Gozen.
“Very well,” they say under their breath.
Sigma’s chin is tilted upward slightly, and Fyodor leans closer. Their lips press against hers, and it’s her first kiss ever, so she’s not sure what she expected. Their lips are chapped despite the chapstick they always apply, and it tastes like pomegranate. She blinks, and Fyodor pulls away like nothing happened. A literal ‘blink, and you’ll miss it’ moment.
“I’ve been meaning to do that for years,” Fyodor is the first to speak.
“Fifty-eight years?” Sigma guesses. It’d be silly of them to want to kiss her after she’s already left that old life of hers behind, unless there was serious yearning going on during their time apart.
“Ah, yes, that sounds about right. I don’t keep track of the time. To think you were only with the Decay of the Angel for three years.”
The three years felt like forever back then. She was constantly on her toes, afraid that the life she had been given would be abruptly torn away from her. Always on edge from Nikolai’s shenanigans, awkwardly nodding at Kamui’s drunken rants, quietly staring down at Bram as he rested, and Fyodor, who she can’t even describe.
The Sky Casino was her everything . And that was torn away from her too, just for her to be given a new life in its place. The ten minutes that she spent with Dazai in Meursault felt like years, and if she was capable of graying, she absolutely would have back then.
And now those short times feel like nothing when she knows that forever is ahead of her. The new year will come, then a century, then a millennium.
While the gun hidden beneath her layers—an easy way out of living forever—is tempting, she pushes those thoughts down. She can give living a try.
She rises from the snow, and Fyodor gets up as well. She stares down at the imprints in the layer of white that they left behind. This snow will melt and evaporate, then become condensation, then precipitation. Just like how the seasons change, time passes, or how most people are born, age, and then die.
Sigma begins to walk towards the village, those warm lights acting as a beacon. Fyodor reaches out for her hand. She stares for a while, because the last time their hands touched, nothing good came of it.
She takes it anyway.