This is a short little King Candy/Taffyta Christmas based drabble, which just…happened. Because I wanted to write them based on the prompt of Christmas Tree and I ended up writing in this style, which is different to what I've done before, but I need more practice of it anyway so it's all good! This was written partly for myself, simply because I wanted to write it, but mainly for Aurora West, who loves this paring and who I have to thank (blame really ;)) for getting me interested enough to write them in the first place. Oh and just to make it crystal clear, Taffyta is an adult in this – imagine Sugar Rush as already having been upgraded, because it isn't explicitly stated anywhere in this fic. And finally, thank you for reading!
Christmas Tree
Although there is always a huge Christmas tree generated for everyone in Sugar Rush to enjoy, right at the start of the track in every glittering colour you can imagine, the racers also insist on producing their own. These are smaller, and are always cut down by hand from a certain section of the forest, as opposed to sprouting up fully formed and perfect on a podium thanks to a targeted, yet authorised, manipulation of the code room.
These trees also require decoration, which the racers do by hand and in their individual colour schemes, and will be placed somewhere with personal meaning. One year Candlehead placed hers outside Beard Papa's booth so that he could talk to the fairy perched on the top of it, and had to be consoled well into the New Year when he'd stumbled, still half-asleep and half-intoxicated, outside without looking and crushed it unknowingly under his boots.
This year Taffyta has once again cut down a pink tree, but this time it's taller and wider and she's having difficulty keeping it in place.
Boxes of decorations lay about her feet, some already spilling over and she knows she should have kept them closed until the tree was ready, but sometimes her impatience kicks up a gear and it overtakes her. Sometimes her confidence does too, but she only offers up a token gesture of resistance when she finds herself coughing in the wake of that.
She stumbles over something, a loose wire a decoration something, feet offline but instincts still primed as she shoots out an arm to break her fall. She falls acutely into the body of the tree itself, face gritted a choice expletive at her lips, rough branches halting her descent sharp pine needles sinking biting brutally into her skin, but all she feels are the light touch of a set of fingers on her arm.
Those fingers tighten, and with careful momentum she finds herself aligned. Those fingers set her arm alight and don't loosen, and with a warm surge downwards she finds herself unsteady.
He doesn't say a word and neither does she, as her face clears and a smile blossoms on it, as he leans forward and presses his chest into her back.
Her bare arm, the one that's burning freely, was another thing she should have given due consideration to; she should have left her glove on while she was righting the tree, not discarded it impatiently so that she could feel the decorations in her palm and taste the forest on her skin.
Her other arm is suitably covered and, as she stretches that one out to grip the spine of the crooked tree slumped into the corner, he puts his own gloved hand on top of hers. Trails his fingers up from her tips to her wrist and then back down again, her cool white leather a powerless barrier against the searing brown that he employs.
Those fingers then grip the tree's trunk as well, a clenched fist just above her own, not quite touching definitely not covering to be a fixed support in perfect place.
Their countdown is measured in breaths; one inhale one exhale before they both tense, grip, place their feet and pull the tree upright.
Both arms straight both arms bent, parallel struts that revive the tree so that it now stands proud as an arrow, dark pink branches light pink branches their circumference now sharp perfection.
Taffyta focuses on her one handed grip, as he lets go of his. A swift duck down under the needles, swift sure fingers moving expertly over and around the stand at its base, and in seconds he's locked the tree into position.
Code, trees, gears, direction and intention are just some of what he can correct; some of what he does correct, what he modifies and adjusts and improves and sets alight or hides away.
Not even to her does he say or show everything, but with self-confidence bordering on arrogance she gives that a trivial acknowledgement only. She knows that those are only minor ways to express yourself and knows for certain what he considers trivial or not.
Things of inconsequence are bypassed with only a cursory glance if you're lucky, and she can't remember a time when his eyes weren't fixed on her like she's the guiding star in his night or the sun in his day.
The cool dimness of the garage, black and brown and gun metal grey, cannot compete with the piercing pink glow that the tree is somehow throwing out. Maybe it's just her eyes deceiving her, for the unadorned branches look inexplicably perfect. And looking at it now it's not really coloured just two shades of pink, or salmon or rose if she's going to be precise, for there are multiple layers of intensity hidden in plain sight in front of her.
And behind her.
And to the side of her.
He's still behind her but edging out to the side, stopping in what he must considers a prime position.
'At least you managed to put one decoration on without my help,' he murmurs warmly into her ear, his gaze still steady on the tree.
A delicious shiver runs completely through her, as she places her own hands over the arms that are now encircling her waits.
'It's the best one,' she says approvingly, as her smile widens. 'And it's the one I don't need any help from you with.'
She can feel his own smile spread into the skin on her neck, and she moves her head into it, sighing softly as he kisses it.
'…maybe I'll take that top spot next time,' he suggests with a promise.
'And maybe I'll let you,' she agrees readily, as if such a ludicrous thing could never happen.
He kisses her neck again before she turns fully into him, their arms around each other like the tinsel that will intertwine and cross and sparkle around the tree, and the eyes they look into are already burning brighter and higher than the gold star blazing at its peak can ever hope to reach.