#lostcomponent

She’d tried her hardest to be careful, to be quiet, praying that the brief sounds of her glitching wouldn’t be enough to wake him from his deep slumber. So far, it didn’t seem to be a problem, and so she carried onwards, managing to get the first few blankets over him without issue. But, when one of those blankets had been tugged a bit too brazenly across one of his many open wounds, the Cy-bug suddenly jerked awake. Vanellope glitched back immediately, putting a safe distance between them as she’d anticipated him lashing out, but that’s not what happened. Aside from his initial flinch, he’d barely moved at all. If anything, all he’d done was shrink away from her, pressing himself harder against the wall as though he wished to disappear against it. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake ya.” She murmured, an apologetic look on her face. Vanellope gestured to the blankets on his back, his eyes only following that gesture for a split second before locking back onto her. “Just tryin’ to make sure ya don’t get too cold, y’know…?” Her explanation yielded no response from him, that unchanging, tense stare being all she got back. She had to wonder if he was even listening to a single word she was saying, or if he was too paralyzed by fear to realize she wasn’t there to hurt him. Not that she could really understand how he’d see someone like her as a threat in the first place… but, either way, it was fairly obvious he wasn’t in a state to be thinking clearly. Biting her tongue, Vanellope ultimately decided she might as well finish what she came here for. She’d started moving the last of the blankets closer, and King Candy stayed frozen in place, following her every movement with his pupils, but he didn’t speak a word. Part of Vanellope felt horrible for bothering him, especially with how he hadn’t stopped shuddering since being woken up, but another part of her hoped this gesture would help prove to him that he’d be safe here.

Read the full chapter on AO3! Please be mindful of the content warnings in the tags.

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.

also bonus version minus the darkness!

Pawchnella would unfortunately bring Sinistar back from the dead, But not without a couple of strings attached...

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?”

Read the full chapter on AO3! Please be mindful of the content warnings in the tags.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five

Me: Yeah, I can get this finished by April Also me: WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN IT'S MID-MAY????

I'm so sorry for being so slow. 😭 But on the bright side, got a cool LC Sinistar fan-art to shout out from the lovely @buttonback!!

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.

The sudden movement had Calhoun put on high alert too, and her hand instinctively fell to the gun in her holster, though she managed to regain conscious control of her movements before making the mistake of aiming it at him. Instead, she raised up both hands, as though to signal she came in peace.  “Didn’t mean to startle you. You weren’t responding when I called.” She said to him, then gestured to the stack of heal kits she’d brought on the hoverboard behind her. “I’m Sergeant Calhoun. Vanellope told you I’d be coming, didn’t she?” ‘Tammy’, he quickly realized. While it was with great reluctance, King Candy managed to force himself to settle down, lying back in the water, though kept cautious eyes locked onto the soldier’s every movement. She moved the heal kits closer to him, making a point of keeping her demeanour mild and non-threatening, though it looked very ill-practiced on her. While it could be his rattled nerves setting him off again, Candy could swear there was some level of animosity bubbling just underneath her surface, barely contained only due to Vanellope’s insistence.  “I brought you some healing items from my cabinet.” She said, eyeing the bug’s multitude of wounds for a brief moment, “Hopefully these will be enough, but I can always get more, if need be.” 

Read the full chapter on AO3! Please be mindful of the content warnings in the tags.

Part One

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.

True to his word, Ralph wasn’t gone for long. Turbo knew this castle like the back of his hand, he knew how far away the kitchen was from the dungeon, and he knew that Ralph must’ve been peculiarly quick on his feet in order to get there and back so soon. So, upon Ralph’s return, he had been met with a skeptical, narrow-eyed glare from the Cy-bug. But Ralph, oblivious to those deductions, hadn’t the slightest idea why Turbo was suddenly looking at him like that. He gave a small, nervous laugh as he put the water down, and awkwardly asked, “What…?” After staring a moment or two longer, Turbo broke eye contact, pulling the bowl of water closer. “Nothing.” He muttered back before taking a drink. At least this time, he managed not to flinch like a pathetic idiot when Ralph sat back down next to him. Even if he did ask the question lingering in the back of his mind - Why do you care so much - Turbo knew he wouldn’t get a straight answer.  Ralph shouldn’t care at all. Especially not to the point of blubbering out stupid apologies while rushing to treat his wounds and bring nourishment. What was he to these people, some frail baby deer instead of the man who terrorized their adopted child for fifteen straight years? It made no sense. They should want him to die, too. Instead, here Ralph was, forcing him to live. Not even just that, but fussing over him like they were anything other than enemies. It was so blatantly contrary to how he should’ve been acting. He remembered when Ralph was ready to beat him senseless after only one day of knowing Vanellope, and that was before he had threatened both of their lives. Maybe this was part of their revenge all along. Making sure he lived to suffer for as long as they saw fit. But if that was the case, why weren’t they treating him worse? As though Turbo wasn’t feeling conflicted enough, Ralph suddenly spoke back up in that gentle, sickeningly-reassuring tone he kept using around him. “I know things are hard right now, but they won’t always be.” Ralph said to him, “The pain will fade.”

Read the full chapter on AO3! Please be mindful of the content warnings in the tags.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

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.

Nahh, since this fic is a lot heavier subject matter, I felt kind of weird about doing the preview posts for this one because it'd just be, like, "HORRIFIC TRAUMA RESPONSE PREVIEW! 🔥" every time, which just felt a little odd to do. 😂 Idk, probably just me being weird and overthinking it, I'm simply being a bit more reserved/guarded with this fic because it's pretty personal and heavy, lol. I do have the next two covers drawn already, so you can have little snips of those I guess, since you asked lol. Just small ones tho. 💯 (Started using the ch.6 one as my icon a while ago bc his exhausted, depressed vibe there is painfully accurate to the entire thing, sobs)

“You’re sorry?!” Despite how hard he’d been trying to keep them at bay, tears of stress and frustration began to well in the Cy-bug’s eyes when he finally glared Ralph’s way, “Why are you all acting like I didn’t do the things I did?! Do you think I’m that stupid?! Pretending you don’t hate me, like I didn’t deserve this-”  “You did not deserve this. I’d never wish this on anybody, no matter how much I hate them.” Ralph reiterated just as adamantly as Vanellope had before him. “And we don’t think you’re stupid, it’s just… not a good time to talk about all of that right now. Vanellope wants you to feel better first.” “I’m never going to feel better,” He sobbed, cowering further away, gripping at his arms with piercing claws. His eyes squeezed shut, voice filled with broken desperation as he cried, “I wish you’d all just kill me already.” “We’re not going to do that, Turbo.” “Why not? I’m not even supposed to be here. I was supposed to die.” “Yeah, you were.” Ralph had to agree. “But you’re here now. So, not much point in dwelling on what should’ve happened. Let’s just worry about the here and now, okay?” But Ralph’s words held no comfort to the Cy-bug. All it did was worsen his despair, knowing how they insisted on prolonging his suffering. Turbo completely broke down, turning into nothing more than a bawling, trembling mess on the floor, a complete and utter shell of himself.  It was when his claws started to pierce into his armoured skin, to the point of drawing blood, that Ralph went tense at the sight. “Is it okay if I-?” “I don’t care, Ralph.” Turbo wept, shaking his head in defeat. “Do whatever you want. I just don’t care anymore.” Ralph hesitated at first, but pushed himself to just get it over with while he had some iota of permission. He inched even closer until he was right up next to him, and in obvious contrast to Turbo’s claims of not caring, the Cy-bug flinched again in response. Shrinking away from the other character, that deathgrip he held on his arms only tightening further. Ralph bit his tongue, debating whether or not this was a good idea, but it’s not like leaving him like this would be much better… If he left, Turbo would just keep hurting himself, like he’s been doing so, so often.

Very delicately, Ralph put his hands overtop one of Turbo’s, being as gentle as he could when unhooking those talons from his arm. He could only reach one side from where he currently sat, but it was better than nothing. Instead of allowing him to take out that violence on his own body, Ralph interlocked his fingers with Turbo’s, offering himself up as an option instead. Rather than being used like a pincushion as he’d braced himself for, all Turbo did was sob harder, his grip tightening around Ralph’s hand, though not to the point of clawing him.  “You may not believe me right now, but it is possible to feel better.” Ralph murmured, rubbing his thumb along the back of Turbo’s hand, “You’ll see.”

Read the full chapter on AO3! Please be mindful of the content warnings in the tags.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

And of course I must give a big thanks to @artacetinker for some great fan-art of what everybody collectively wanted to do to that rat bastard lmao

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.

Soon enough, Sergeant Calhoun had walked inside the dungeon, carrying a duffel bag along with her. She had started to say something to Turbo, only to pause when she saw Vanellope was there, too. “Oh.” She blinked at her, clearly not expecting to see her there. “I thought you’d be busy monitoring the roster race.”  “I asked Sour Bill to take care of it today.” Vanellope replied. “What’s up?” Calhoun’s eyes flicked between Vanellope and Turbo, a contemplative look on her face, and she bit her tongue. “Just… need to check on some of Turbo’s injuries, that’s all.” She eventually said, walking a bit closer to the Cy-bug curled up in the corner, setting the duffel bag down nearby. “Managed to find some different healing items that might be a little more helpful.” Confused, Vanellope’s gaze pulled back towards King Candy, who had been healing relatively fine since yesterday. Back wounds aside, most of his other injuries had already been wrapped with Hero’s Duty heals, not seeming to need anything more. Though, she supposed she was no expert with this sort of thing… “Okey dokey,” Hopping to her feet, Vanellope walked up to Calhoun’s side, the soldier having knelt down next to the bag she’d started pulling supplies out of, and asked, “How can I help?” Pausing what she was doing, Calhoun glanced down at Vanellope, her apprehension made obvious by the disconcerted look on her face. “Vanellope, what I mean is, you should leave the room for a little while, okay?”  “But why?” Pouting, Vanellope was quick to object, “I could help!” “Not with this, pipsqueak.” Calhoun held firm. “I think he’ll want some privacy.” Again, she had started to protest, started asking why, already getting tired of how the others kept implying she couldn’t help with these things with no real explanation, though she stopped when the Cy-bug finally spoke up next. “Please, glitch.”  It was that single plea from King Candy that got her to back down. That one word she still wasn’t used to him saying to her, spoken with such defeat and shame, that it had her feeling too guilty to press the issue. She glanced his way once more, though King Candy kept his back turned to them, avoiding their stares in a way that she knew was very intentional. “... Okay.” Vanellope quietly agreed, all while wishing she could just know what she needed to do to actually help him. But, for now, all she could do was allow Calhoun to lead her out of the room, and give the space that was asked for.

Read the full chapter on AO3! Please be mindful of the content warnings in the tags.

Part One | Part Two

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.