voidtreckerexpress | (closed) even though nothing has changed

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(closed) even though nothing has changed

Who: Madoka and Romeo
When: The day after the dreams
Where: Somewhere on the train.. magically waves hands..
What: Madoka and Romeo had one pleasant and one less-than-pleasant dream encounter, so they need to hug the latter out.
Warnings: References to body horror and small children dying.

It still feels like her head is spinning even when everyone is awake again and the dreams have stopped. Madoka has just seen and experienced too much in such a short span of time - or, well, it actually felt much shorter than how long the dreams apparently lasted. But as she tries to recall some of the dreams she's seen, there's one in particular that stands out to her enough to want to seek out the other person involved in it. Even if some details of the dreams might have faded, it's hard for Madoka to put the image of Romeo's body shifting so very awfully out of her mind. Even now it feels like it makes her stomach turn, and she was only the one witnessing it. Not even experiencing it. How much worse must Romeo feel over that, even if it was only a dream..?

Not to mention that Madoka is pretty sure that dream was born from her mind, not his. They were in Mitakihara, after all. And-- was Kyubey even there? The details are all so fussy, but she feels like it must somehow have been her fault that Romeo went through all of that. The least she can do is seek the other out and apologize to him.

So Madoka will start heading all over the train to try and find the other. She first pops her head into Romeo's room, but if he isn't there, then she'll keep looking until she finds him, shyly approaching him.

"R.. Romeo.."

She isn't even sure of what else to say. Madoka just looks overly apologetic, like a kicked puppy. How could she even make that awful, awful dream up to him?

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"That's because it's important to keep your spirits up and help other people keep them up too." He smiled at her, hoping she understood. She was still finding it tricky, he thought, to accept how nice and kind she was.

And her eyes are full of tears, that makes Romeo feel bad because he would never want to make Madoka cry, not ever! He held her hand even tighter.

"I can show you a trick if you want, to help you keep your spirits up even when you feel really bad and everything is really scary!"

It might help her, it might prevent those tears from falling.

Madoka can understand it. But she knows very well that she's - and even that is more like probably - good at half of that. She can at least try to keep other people's spirits up, but it's a lot harder to do the same thing for herself.

So she nods, managing to still hold back the tears for now.

"O.. Okay. I'd really like to learn that trick.."

Romeo smiled at her gently and let go of one of her hands, he kept tight hold of the other one though. "When everything is sad or scary and it's really tricky to keep your spirits up, you can do this!"

He brought his hand up, pulling hers up with it above their heads, pointing straight to the sky.

She's listening pretty attentively, but when Romeo actually makes the gesture, Madoka mostly looks surprised instead. She's not entirely sure what she expected Romeo's trick to be, but it sure wasn't this.

(Hey, at least the surprise is keeping her from looking too sad for a moment, so that's an upside.)

".. Just that..?"

Madoka glances up at their joint hands in the air.

"And then what..?"

"That's it..." Romeo blinked at her, "Did it not work?"

The trick always worked to help him make better and it had worked on miss Hibiki too so he doesn't know why it's not working now...

Maybe Madoka's spirits are in more danger than he had thought!

"Oh.."

Madoka fully expected there to be some next step to this, so when Romeo announces that it's the full trick, she instantly starts looking kind of guilty. It must be her fault, right? Maybe there really is something special to that trick, and she's just immune to it. Or she did something wrong. It couldn't be that something Romeo so genuinely believes in just has a placebo effect at best, right.

"I.. I'm sorry. I don't really feel anything different. I guess I must not be good enough for your special trick somehow.."

"No!" He shook his head quickly, looking very worried. "It's not you, Madoka! I don't know why it didn't work but it's definitely not because you aren't good enough!"

How could it be so? Madoka was great. The situation must be more dire than he thought! He still had her hand so he pulls her slightly, "Will you come with me, Madoka?"

He has an idea.

At least that question gets her to look back at him instead of wallowing in self-depreciation.

"Of course." She doesn't even have to think about that answer. Madoka completely trusts Romeo, so she'd follow him wherever he'd want without having to think about it. "Where are we going..?"

"To the kitchen!" He grinned at her, "You like chocolate gateaux right? We had it in the nicer dream on the train roof!"

So if the air punch didn't work to keep her spirits up then making her cake maybe would. Even miss Hibiki's spirits were raised by cake! Even Chikusa's spirits had been raised with food.

"Ah.. wait!"

She's already following him though, despite saying that.

"Y.. you want to make that right now?" It's not a bad idea. If anything, it's touching that he remembers how much she liked it in that dream.. But Madoka looks a tiny bit concerned in the middle of the surprise anyway. "Are you sure you're up for that?"

He did just change into a really scary monster in the dream! No one would blame him for not really being up for making cake.

"Yes!" He nodded, "Of course I'm up for it!" He grinned, "I'm not as good as mister Ignis but I practised lots so I can make yummy cake!"

And she deserved all the yummy cake!

.. Romeo really is cool, isn't he? Even though something that scary happened, he's smiling and cheerful. Just like always. Madoka can't help but feel incredibly inadequate next to him. How could she ever get on that level?

She tries to not wallow in the feeling too much, not when Romeo is being so sweet to her.

"I think you're plenty good at it, Romeo." The least she can do is make sure she seems appreciative and supportive of him in return for all of this. "Besides, the most important thing about food is what kind of feelings you put into it."

Romeo nodded, that was a good thing to think about. Putting feelings into food. "Yes! So I'll put lots of happy thoughts into your cake and then you will be cheered up and there will be no more bad dreams!"

He smiled, "Do you want to help? You don't got to but baking is fun and we can put teamwork into the cake too!"

Teamwork was definitely a feeling.

"Of course I want to help."

In fact, maybe baking is exactly what she needs right now to get her thoughts off the bad things. Maybe she'll already feel better before she's even tasting the cake. She sucks in a deep breath, determined to be more positive.

"Papa taught me a lot too, so I'm sure we'll be able to make a great cake when we're doing it together."

Romeo grinned at her, "Great! I bet we can make the best cake and you can show me what your papa taught you! Is he a good baker? What is he like? Does he have pink hair like you?"

He actually has quite a lot of questions, he doesn't remember his own dad and Elfnein doesn't have one. Joss probably did once but for a long time he couldn't remember either, and Romeo hasn't wanted to ask him too many questions since, in case those returned memories brought him sadness.

"Ah..! Um.." Madoka's cheeks turn just as pink as her hair. "I was actually talking about Ignis.."

It's not like she's awkward at all anymore about calling him papa at this point, but it's always a little flustering to remember that right, it's not like there's been an official announcement about her getting adopted! It's easy for people to not know what she's talking about!

"B--But my papa from back home was.. um, is really good at baking too, so I guess they're similar in that sense.."

"Oh..." He looked confused at that, "Ignis is your papa? As well as your papa from home."

He thought for a moment, "It's like when Joss had a mum in the heavens who wasn't his mum from before but actually his god."

So Ignis looked after Madoka like a dad looked after a daughter and so she had two dads now!

"So you must be the best baker if you got two dads that are good at it!"

She just patiently waits as Romeo slowly seems to grasp the idea. Thankfully he ends up arriving at the right conclusion in the end, so Madoka smiles at him with relief.

"That's right, it's like that!" At least this way she thankfully doesn't have to explain to Romeo that it's also since she'll probably never see her parents again even if she does go home.. She'd rather spare him that after all the stuff they've already been through in the dream.

".. a-although I don't think baking skills work that way! I'm nowhere near as good as either of them, I just.. try my best. But I think a really important part of it is just the love and effort you put into it.."

"And you got lots of love, so you will be able to put lots into your baking!"

He was sure of it, this was going to be the best cake ever! And it would make up for all the scary things that had happened in that bad dream!

"Ah-- Well, you too, Romeo!"

If there's anyone on this train who seems to be full of constant happiness and love, then it's got to be Romeo, right? There's no way she can't bounce that compliment straight back at him when he is literally in the process of trying to cheer her up over something he should be feeling worse about than her.

"If you put the love you have into it, it might just end up too powerful. It could be a cake that'd make anyone feel like they're floating..!"

"That would be the best cake! If we made a cake together it would be the most powerful cake in the whole wide world!"

All the worlds. There would be no cake more powerful than one he and Madoka made together!

He laughs, he likes that idea, he can't wait to make cake with her!

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(closed) even though nothing has changed

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