Title: black coffee
Character/Pairing: Madoka, Homura, Sayaka
A/N: Ahh, this came out better than I expected. Huzzah. =D Set post Rebellion
Summary: Darkness, she thinks. It is a black flavor, love gone wrong.
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There is something off here, in this world. In her life. Madoka feels a heaviness in her, something in weighing on her chest, squashing her lungs.
In the morning, she wakes up breathless, a sharp taste in her mouth.
Darkness, she thinks. It is a black flavor, love gone wrong.
"Madoka," her dad calls and the thought leaves her.
-x-
"Stay with me," Homura requests, her eyes dark. There is something off about her, something strained. As though she's waiting for something, been waiting for a long time.
The desperation of it all scares her.
"Where else would I be?" Madoka backs away, confused and scared. Homura is asking for something else, something more, she's sure of it.
This is Homura. There is nothing to fear.
Her feet still take another step.
Homura purses her lips and Madoka knows she gave the wrong answer.
She doesn't even know the question.
"What's wrong?" she asks, a deflection.
Homura smiles, shaking her head as she signals to go. "It's nothing, nothing at all." She grabs Madoka's hand, a cheery tone in her voice, and the past is a figment of Madoka's imagination.
Only her eyes, her eyes are still shadowed.
-x-
"Something feels off," Sayaka confides. They sit in the park, watching the kids play.
"You feel it too?" Madoka sighs, relieved. It's not just her.
Sayaka nods. "Yeah. It's on the tip of my tongue." The edges of her memory, the shadows in the corner of her eye. Madoka almost turns around, she can feel it creeping behind her.
"I can almost remember. Something's different."
"It's like the world changed scales. We went down an octave." Years of loving Kyousuke had left Sayaka with more musical knowledge than she liked. "It shouldn't be like this."
"No, it shouldn't." Madoka can feel it, the hard edges of memory. "We shouldn't be here."
"No, we…" Sayaka's voice trails off and she looks at Madoka. "We shouldn't be here."
-x-
Something is missing. From the world.
From herself.
Madoka feels a tug in her heart, a slim thread connecting her to someone. Something. Her missing part, her other half.
She looks at her hands, at the smooth planes of her skin. They don't look quite right. Her clothes don't feel good, like they're too tight and she is itching to tear them off.
"I'm not whole," she whispers to Homura. "I'm broken."
Homura's face shatters, panic-stricken. "It's fine like this. You're fine like this."
She remembers having this conversation a month ago. Remembers the stars, a feeling of weightlessness. She knew a greater gravity before, a cosmic entity—without thinking, she raises a hand, reaching for something.
Someone.
Herself.
"No…it…it shouldn't be like this." Madoka can feel the void within her. Homura can sense it too, she knows.
"Help me," she turns to face her friend. "I can feel it—it's so close."
Sparks bite her mouth, a magic she cannot name. Magic, magic—it was about magic.
The stars call her, the stars and someone else.
"I need to go."
"Don't!" Homura yells and the last thing she hears is heartbreak.
And then, for once, for the first time in so long, Madoka opens her eyes.