Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2011-11-29 08:09 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2011-11-29 08:09 pm
Madoka Magica: Keepsake
Title: Keepsake
Fandom: Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Characters/Pairings: Kyouko/Sayaka, Homura
Rating: R
Contents: Depression; character deaths; (teen/teen) sex; spoilers for everything.
Disclaimer: Not my universe; I just play in it.
Scenes from a timeline where Oktavia gets averted, at least for a while. In which Sayaka is in a dark place, Kyouko is fighting to hang on to her, and neither is really in any shape to be sorting out her intense feelings about the other (but they make a connection anyway).
For the Kaleidoscope fest at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
dark_agenda. My recipient didn't specify a mood...so this went and got amazingly angsty. Title is an allusion to a poem by Izumi Shikibu.
The world is distorting in a pool with Sayaka at the epicenter. Rings of static swirl out from under her feet; the kanji on the train directory posted on the wall blur and shift into runes in a script no human thought up.
Kyouko tackles her to the ground, pins her wrists above her head, and nearly cracks a grief seed knocking it against her soul gem.
The blue orb is still hellishly cloudy, but it's not that sickening shade that looked almost darker than true black, and the scenery seems to be obeying the laws of perspective again. Sayaka lies coma-still, chest barely moving. Kyouko's own breath is rough and labored; she has an inkling of what was about to happen, and is trying with all her might not to know.
A shadow moves behind her. Kyouko sweeps out her arm, ready to grab her spear the instant her transformation finishes, but levels off when she realizes it's Homura. The other girl's hair blends with the shadows, the white streak of her uniform like the moon's midnight reflection on the ocean. No need to transform to address the likes of her. Probably.
"Do you need any grief seeds?" says Homura. Like she's announcing the next stop on the subway.
Kyouko grits her teeth. "I'll manage."
"If you're sure."
She waits for a confirmation that Kyouko's too frightened and furious to give. When nothing happens, she turns and all but vanishes into the gloom.
Suspicions whirl through Kyouko's head, but she has bigger concerns right now than what the ice queen knows and how. Sayaka's eyes are glazed and unfocused; she blinks when Kyouko snaps fingers an inch from her nose, but is unable (or unwilling?) to react beyond that.
Kyouko hefts the other girl's body (lighter than she thought it would be) over her shoulder and starts walking.
She doesn't know why she kept Mami's spare key. Doesn't know why Mami gave it to her in the first place; being lonely is no excuse for being a chump, and it's just her good luck Kyouko didn't help herself to the contents of the fridge every day during school. Although, knowing Mami, that might have been the idea.
No way to know now.
Almost nobody else has been in the apartment, as far as Kyouko knows. Homura doesn't seem interested; Madoka went in once, but didn't take anything, just sat around and cried for a while. Certainly nobody else has been taking the food, which just seems stupid at this point. Do they want it to go to waste?
She dumps Sayaka on the bed, arranges her in a respectable sort of position, and heads to the kitchen to check whether there are perishables she hasn't gotten to yet.
Normally she would pile her selection on a plate in no particular order or eat it straight out of the containers, but something about Mami's lingering influence weighs on her, and Kyouko finds herself setting out to cook rice. While the water boils she arranges two artful dishes: a golden swoop of canned peaches, a dollop of near-expired yogurt, a dash of the spice cupboard's most likely-smelling offering. A couple of lopsided rice balls later, and she has something she can almost be proud of.
Annoyed at her own sentimentality, she carries the plates to the bedroom with deliberate graceless haste. It backfires when she almost drops them, slopping the fruit and rice and yogurt all together before she finds her balance.
Sayaka's crying. Too silently for Kyouko to guess for how long.
The other girl hasn't even moved, that's the worst of it. She's flat on her back, tears rolling down her face — they're pooling in her ears, for crying out loud, and she can't even be bothered to turn her head. It's ridiculous, Kyouko thinks (and clings to the thought, because it's the safest one she can come up with), stowing the plates on a pastel makeup table with a curved-heart mirror and grabbing a handkerchief. (That's Mami all over: much too classy for tissues.)
"You idiot," she says, hips landing on the bed beside Sayaka's crumpled skirt. With a few rough swipes she scrubs away the tears. "You could've found this thing yourself if you had bothered to look up."
Sayaka's mouth works. Nothing comes out.
Kyouko bites back a jab about how the rice is getting cold.
"Why did you save me?" croaks Sayaka at last. The words are hoarse and raspy, a shinigami death-rattle.
"Are you kidding? You made it so easy, it wasn't worth my while not to. Pay more attention and save yourself next time, if you don't want me stepping in."
A fresh wave of tears pools in Sayaka's baby-blue eyes. "Thought you'd be happy. When I die, it'll prove you right."
Instinct urges Kyouko to shut down, to distance herself from the bleakness with everything she's got. Instead she grabs Sayaka by the shoulders, hands crushing the puffed school-uniform sleeves. "What happened to all your big talk about being a hero of justice?" she shouts, giving the other girl a shove (there's no resistance; she's rag-doll limp). "How are you going to be any use to anyone after you've gone and committed suicide by witch? How do you think Kaname-chan's going to feel if you die on her? She's broken up enough over Tomoe-san, and they barely knew each other! You're her best friend!"
"She'll get over me!" cries Sayaka. Kyouko's grip tightens. "And don't pretend you care all of a sudden! You would have killed me in front of her if Akemi-san hadn't gotten there first!"
"I'm sorry." The words spill out before she has time to think. "It wasn't you, it was..." I couldn't stand thinking of what it would mean about me if you proved me wrong. Who knew I could stand seeing you like this even less? "Don't do this on my account, Miki-san. Or anyone else's. Show me up. Please."
Sayaka chokes on her tears. "It's too late."
"Since w—"
"I killed. Two people. Not witches. Humans."
Kyouko shakes her head. "Knowing you, they probably deserved it."
"It's not a joke!" It's a mercy Sayaka doesn't really have the strength to shriek, much less claw Kyouko's eyes out, the way she looks like she'd love to. "Dammit, Sakura-san, it's not...."
Kyouko hefts both legs up onto the mattress and drags Sayaka into her lap.
Everything's so heavy.
Sayaka can feel the weight of her bones sinking into the bedspread. Maybe Kyouko's using magical strength to move her (the thought is vague and grey; everything is, except where lanced with jagged black). The denim of the redhead's shorts is rough against her cheek, the soft jacket almost downy as her face is pressed into its folds.
She's being cradled like an infant, which is both the last thing she deserves and the last she would have expected from Kyouko, of all people.
As if reading her thoughts, Kyouko says, "I absolve you." It's a solid phrase, the way she says it. Almost reverent.
"Can't," mumbles Sayaka. The jacket soaks up her tears.
Kyouko's thumb rubs in slow circles on the back of her shoulder, digging into muscles she hadn't realized were knotted. "I can. Better than anyone else, because I understand that the game's rigged against us. Maybe Akemi-san knows too, but she's in denial. I'm not."
"You are. A little. Or you wouldn't have tried to save me. I can't live like you do, so it's inevitable that I'll die or...or...."
She can't say it. On some level she's known for days now, but if she tries to put it into words her voice might collapse into runic gibberish or a tuneless violin screech.
"Maybe I know," says Kyouko. "Maybe I just wanted to have some more time with you first."
Sayaka can't say who made the first move. Was it the way she clasped the curve of Kyouko's hip, all her strength flowing into that one possessive gesture? Was it Kyouko's fingers playing with the fine hairs at the nape of her neck? Did she find the will to raise her head as a response to some subtle invitation, or in the hope (almost too unfamiliar to recognize) of provoking one?
Kyouko's lips slide smoothly against hers until they fit like tumblers in a lock. One or both of them has bitten the inside of her cheeks too much lately: the kiss tastes like copper.
When the shorts are too tight and have too many fastenings, Sayaka loses interest and simply kneads her hand between Kyouko's legs, feeling the seam rub against pliant flesh just right. She's fumbled through this on her own before, thinking guiltily of Kyousuke, always unable to look him in the eye the next day. Kyouko doesn't admit to more or less experience, but seems content to follow Sayaka's lead. The pleats of her skirt flip up easily, letting the other girl's fingers move her to a slow burn.
Neither of them speaks. Maybe to avoid bothering Mami's ghost, or maybe because they're beyond the reach of words. Kyouko gasps once, twice, hips canting hard against Sayaka's (wet enough to be damp against her fingertips even through the fabric), then jumps as the blue-and-white skirt materializes between her own hand and Sayaka's skin.
"Not yet," she pleads, breaking the silence with tears of her own. "Please, Sayaka, not yet."
The sword hilt materializes in her hand like it's always been there. It was meant for her gloves, but it'll slide into Kyouko's grip easy enough. "Tell Madoka-chan I died in battle. And help Akemi-san keep her from contracting. Please."
Kyouko blinks rapidly and nods. If she thinks it's odd that there's no message for Kyousuke, she doesn't mention it.
For someone so adept with a heavy polearm, she handles the blade like it might explode. Sayaka unsnaps her breastplate, revealing the thin layer of cotton wrapped around her chest, and guides the point to just over her heart.
***
Kyouko sat bolt upright in bed, startled and confused and uncomfortably turned on.
Her soul gem didn't react. No demons in the area, then. And she couldn't hear anything except the soft sound of Mami's snoring in the next room. (The girl had been so scandalized when Kyouko informed her that she snored.)
That must have been some dream.
She fell back onto the pillow with a groan, slipping her hand under her nightshirt and trying to pull the fragmented images together. There was a woman she didn't know, not so much sexy as fairytale-pretty, with endless pink hair against a backdrop of stars. Before that there were cold rice balls (what would Freud say?), and an empty apartment, and...Sayaka.
She'd been having a sex dream about Sayaka. Not only that, a dream so vivid that she half expected to find a pair of discarded hair clips lying on the sheet beside her.
Fantasizing about a girl she'd barely known, to say nothing of a girl who had left this world not long ago, probably should have made her feel guilty. But when the thought flickered across Kyouko's mind, another shut it down:
No. This is the most I can leave you for now. Until you two next see each other, keep it close.
Fandom: Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Characters/Pairings: Kyouko/Sayaka, Homura
Rating: R
Contents: Depression; character deaths; (teen/teen) sex; spoilers for everything.
Disclaimer: Not my universe; I just play in it.
Scenes from a timeline where Oktavia gets averted, at least for a while. In which Sayaka is in a dark place, Kyouko is fighting to hang on to her, and neither is really in any shape to be sorting out her intense feelings about the other (but they make a connection anyway).
For the Kaleidoscope fest at
dark_agenda. My recipient didn't specify a mood...so this went and got amazingly angsty. Title is an allusion to a poem by Izumi Shikibu.The world is distorting in a pool with Sayaka at the epicenter. Rings of static swirl out from under her feet; the kanji on the train directory posted on the wall blur and shift into runes in a script no human thought up.
Kyouko tackles her to the ground, pins her wrists above her head, and nearly cracks a grief seed knocking it against her soul gem.
The blue orb is still hellishly cloudy, but it's not that sickening shade that looked almost darker than true black, and the scenery seems to be obeying the laws of perspective again. Sayaka lies coma-still, chest barely moving. Kyouko's own breath is rough and labored; she has an inkling of what was about to happen, and is trying with all her might not to know.
A shadow moves behind her. Kyouko sweeps out her arm, ready to grab her spear the instant her transformation finishes, but levels off when she realizes it's Homura. The other girl's hair blends with the shadows, the white streak of her uniform like the moon's midnight reflection on the ocean. No need to transform to address the likes of her. Probably.
"Do you need any grief seeds?" says Homura. Like she's announcing the next stop on the subway.
Kyouko grits her teeth. "I'll manage."
"If you're sure."
She waits for a confirmation that Kyouko's too frightened and furious to give. When nothing happens, she turns and all but vanishes into the gloom.
Suspicions whirl through Kyouko's head, but she has bigger concerns right now than what the ice queen knows and how. Sayaka's eyes are glazed and unfocused; she blinks when Kyouko snaps fingers an inch from her nose, but is unable (or unwilling?) to react beyond that.
Kyouko hefts the other girl's body (lighter than she thought it would be) over her shoulder and starts walking.
She doesn't know why she kept Mami's spare key. Doesn't know why Mami gave it to her in the first place; being lonely is no excuse for being a chump, and it's just her good luck Kyouko didn't help herself to the contents of the fridge every day during school. Although, knowing Mami, that might have been the idea.
No way to know now.
Almost nobody else has been in the apartment, as far as Kyouko knows. Homura doesn't seem interested; Madoka went in once, but didn't take anything, just sat around and cried for a while. Certainly nobody else has been taking the food, which just seems stupid at this point. Do they want it to go to waste?
She dumps Sayaka on the bed, arranges her in a respectable sort of position, and heads to the kitchen to check whether there are perishables she hasn't gotten to yet.
Normally she would pile her selection on a plate in no particular order or eat it straight out of the containers, but something about Mami's lingering influence weighs on her, and Kyouko finds herself setting out to cook rice. While the water boils she arranges two artful dishes: a golden swoop of canned peaches, a dollop of near-expired yogurt, a dash of the spice cupboard's most likely-smelling offering. A couple of lopsided rice balls later, and she has something she can almost be proud of.
Annoyed at her own sentimentality, she carries the plates to the bedroom with deliberate graceless haste. It backfires when she almost drops them, slopping the fruit and rice and yogurt all together before she finds her balance.
Sayaka's crying. Too silently for Kyouko to guess for how long.
The other girl hasn't even moved, that's the worst of it. She's flat on her back, tears rolling down her face — they're pooling in her ears, for crying out loud, and she can't even be bothered to turn her head. It's ridiculous, Kyouko thinks (and clings to the thought, because it's the safest one she can come up with), stowing the plates on a pastel makeup table with a curved-heart mirror and grabbing a handkerchief. (That's Mami all over: much too classy for tissues.)
"You idiot," she says, hips landing on the bed beside Sayaka's crumpled skirt. With a few rough swipes she scrubs away the tears. "You could've found this thing yourself if you had bothered to look up."
Sayaka's mouth works. Nothing comes out.
Kyouko bites back a jab about how the rice is getting cold.
"Why did you save me?" croaks Sayaka at last. The words are hoarse and raspy, a shinigami death-rattle.
"Are you kidding? You made it so easy, it wasn't worth my while not to. Pay more attention and save yourself next time, if you don't want me stepping in."
A fresh wave of tears pools in Sayaka's baby-blue eyes. "Thought you'd be happy. When I die, it'll prove you right."
Instinct urges Kyouko to shut down, to distance herself from the bleakness with everything she's got. Instead she grabs Sayaka by the shoulders, hands crushing the puffed school-uniform sleeves. "What happened to all your big talk about being a hero of justice?" she shouts, giving the other girl a shove (there's no resistance; she's rag-doll limp). "How are you going to be any use to anyone after you've gone and committed suicide by witch? How do you think Kaname-chan's going to feel if you die on her? She's broken up enough over Tomoe-san, and they barely knew each other! You're her best friend!"
"She'll get over me!" cries Sayaka. Kyouko's grip tightens. "And don't pretend you care all of a sudden! You would have killed me in front of her if Akemi-san hadn't gotten there first!"
"I'm sorry." The words spill out before she has time to think. "It wasn't you, it was..." I couldn't stand thinking of what it would mean about me if you proved me wrong. Who knew I could stand seeing you like this even less? "Don't do this on my account, Miki-san. Or anyone else's. Show me up. Please."
Sayaka chokes on her tears. "It's too late."
"Since w—"
"I killed. Two people. Not witches. Humans."
Kyouko shakes her head. "Knowing you, they probably deserved it."
"It's not a joke!" It's a mercy Sayaka doesn't really have the strength to shriek, much less claw Kyouko's eyes out, the way she looks like she'd love to. "Dammit, Sakura-san, it's not...."
Kyouko hefts both legs up onto the mattress and drags Sayaka into her lap.
Everything's so heavy.
Sayaka can feel the weight of her bones sinking into the bedspread. Maybe Kyouko's using magical strength to move her (the thought is vague and grey; everything is, except where lanced with jagged black). The denim of the redhead's shorts is rough against her cheek, the soft jacket almost downy as her face is pressed into its folds.
She's being cradled like an infant, which is both the last thing she deserves and the last she would have expected from Kyouko, of all people.
As if reading her thoughts, Kyouko says, "I absolve you." It's a solid phrase, the way she says it. Almost reverent.
"Can't," mumbles Sayaka. The jacket soaks up her tears.
Kyouko's thumb rubs in slow circles on the back of her shoulder, digging into muscles she hadn't realized were knotted. "I can. Better than anyone else, because I understand that the game's rigged against us. Maybe Akemi-san knows too, but she's in denial. I'm not."
"You are. A little. Or you wouldn't have tried to save me. I can't live like you do, so it's inevitable that I'll die or...or...."
She can't say it. On some level she's known for days now, but if she tries to put it into words her voice might collapse into runic gibberish or a tuneless violin screech.
"Maybe I know," says Kyouko. "Maybe I just wanted to have some more time with you first."
Sayaka can't say who made the first move. Was it the way she clasped the curve of Kyouko's hip, all her strength flowing into that one possessive gesture? Was it Kyouko's fingers playing with the fine hairs at the nape of her neck? Did she find the will to raise her head as a response to some subtle invitation, or in the hope (almost too unfamiliar to recognize) of provoking one?
Kyouko's lips slide smoothly against hers until they fit like tumblers in a lock. One or both of them has bitten the inside of her cheeks too much lately: the kiss tastes like copper.
When the shorts are too tight and have too many fastenings, Sayaka loses interest and simply kneads her hand between Kyouko's legs, feeling the seam rub against pliant flesh just right. She's fumbled through this on her own before, thinking guiltily of Kyousuke, always unable to look him in the eye the next day. Kyouko doesn't admit to more or less experience, but seems content to follow Sayaka's lead. The pleats of her skirt flip up easily, letting the other girl's fingers move her to a slow burn.
Neither of them speaks. Maybe to avoid bothering Mami's ghost, or maybe because they're beyond the reach of words. Kyouko gasps once, twice, hips canting hard against Sayaka's (wet enough to be damp against her fingertips even through the fabric), then jumps as the blue-and-white skirt materializes between her own hand and Sayaka's skin.
"Not yet," she pleads, breaking the silence with tears of her own. "Please, Sayaka, not yet."
The sword hilt materializes in her hand like it's always been there. It was meant for her gloves, but it'll slide into Kyouko's grip easy enough. "Tell Madoka-chan I died in battle. And help Akemi-san keep her from contracting. Please."
Kyouko blinks rapidly and nods. If she thinks it's odd that there's no message for Kyousuke, she doesn't mention it.
For someone so adept with a heavy polearm, she handles the blade like it might explode. Sayaka unsnaps her breastplate, revealing the thin layer of cotton wrapped around her chest, and guides the point to just over her heart.
***
Kyouko sat bolt upright in bed, startled and confused and uncomfortably turned on.
Her soul gem didn't react. No demons in the area, then. And she couldn't hear anything except the soft sound of Mami's snoring in the next room. (The girl had been so scandalized when Kyouko informed her that she snored.)
That must have been some dream.
She fell back onto the pillow with a groan, slipping her hand under her nightshirt and trying to pull the fragmented images together. There was a woman she didn't know, not so much sexy as fairytale-pretty, with endless pink hair against a backdrop of stars. Before that there were cold rice balls (what would Freud say?), and an empty apartment, and...Sayaka.
She'd been having a sex dream about Sayaka. Not only that, a dream so vivid that she half expected to find a pair of discarded hair clips lying on the sheet beside her.
Fantasizing about a girl she'd barely known, to say nothing of a girl who had left this world not long ago, probably should have made her feel guilty. But when the thought flickered across Kyouko's mind, another shut it down:
No. This is the most I can leave you for now. Until you two next see each other, keep it close.
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I love the way you write. It's so evocative and full of fresh, unexpected ways to describe things.
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Thank you! This series has such fantastic imagery, it's inspiring.