Candy’s irritation with her had quickly morphed into something else. Not anything he’d personally call concern, but it had to be something along those lines. Children cry sometimes, and that was normal. But this wasn’t normal. Something was very wrong.
He needed to adapt, and quickly. If there was any part of his old facade left inside of him, any part of that sugary-sweet, caring ruler persona he used to be able to fake so well, then he needed to find it now. For as exhausted as he was, King Candy took a brief moment to think, to readjust himself into something gentler, and settled on a different approach. He curled his body in a loose spiral around her, careful not to touch her directly, and lowered his head down to her level.
“Vanellope,” He spoke, keeping his voice low and calm in contrast to her panic, “I need you to listen to me for a moment. Can you do that for me, please?”
Through her incessant bawling and sporadically-glitching code, Vanellope was barely able to manage a small nod.
“Good, good. You’re going to be just fine. Now, what I need you to do is take a nice, deep breath, okay?” King Candy took an emphasized breath inwards to demonstrate. “Just like this, understand?”
As hard as she had tried to follow his example, her body wouldn’t cooperate. Her panic only grew with each failed attempt. “I-I ca-can’t–”
“It’s okay. I know you can do it.” He consoled her, keeping a carefully-constructed mask of reassurance at his forefront. “Let’s try again, alright? Breathe in through your mouth.”
And try she did, but all that followed was more coughing. More choking. More desperate heaves for air that her tiny lungs couldn’t hold onto.
Well, this doesn’t seem to be working… Candy thought for another moment, reached his hand close behind Vanellope, then paused, realizing this might not be the best idea, given their history… Whether or not she could answer this in her current state was debatable, but he asked anyway. “Is it okay if I touch you?”
Again, she managed a tiny nod. So, he used the side of one clawtip to start rubbing her back, very gently and carefully. The gesture of comfort had a near-immediate effect, giving Vanellope the support needed to finally ground herself, and shaky as it was, she finally managed to take a somewhat-normal breath inwards.
“Yes, just like that. You’re doing very well.” Candy kept reassuring her, “Let’s do it again, now. Nice and slow, okay?”
For a few minutes, they repeated the process, however long it took for Vanellope’s coding to stabilize at last, her distressed sobs easing out into quiet sniffles.
“There we go, easy does it…” He murmured, keeping up with the gentle back-rubs until her breathing was back to some state of normal. “Feeling better?”
Please note that this fic is in no way connected to Kill Switch. I’m reusing Cy-bug Sinistar as a (very temporary this time) villain, and there will probably be some similar vibes in how the characters develop their friendships, but the stories themselves have absolutely no narrative connection to each other. This is a different WIR fic starting from scratch.
