Proserpina
He wrung the night cap in his hands, twisting it anxiously within his fingers as he tried to remain still and unyielding to the agony of watching his young daughter plagued by nightmarish dreams. He watched her fervently, brow creased with utmost worry and half-hidden fear of what she was experiencing. Perhaps, in some way it was selfish of him to wish her night terrors did not include him –no, that they didn't include his skin, his snarling, sickening grin of triumph, his eyes that were practically murderous—yet he could not help but want to banish the very idea.
It was one thing to watch his daughter squirming out of torment, but only increasing agony to know that he could not do a single thing about it. He could not wake her from her sleep, not with the possibility that she may see his face and be ever the more consumed by fright with the belief that he was… that creature.
Candy clutched at the collar of his nightshirt and all but tore at his bedcap, breathing heavily out of a combination of unapologetic anger and the exhaustion of his own anguish. Looking up, he saw that his daughter had calmed somewhat; his baby was no longer hyperventilating, though she was still shaking slightly. He took several deep breaths, needing to regain his calm just as much as she, before stepping forward. Boldly, the King grasped at the pink marshmallow comforter that Vanellope had nearly torn off of herself and tucked it back over his baby. There he smiled quietly and warmly, the stirring in his chest not as painful as the last while he looked on her sweet, round face.
He reached a hand to caress the top of her head, a familiar gesture or so it had been programmed, and wipe away some of the glistening sheen of sweat on her forehead but halted almost immediately. He was completely still, looking down though at nowhere in particular; catatonic.
King Candy pulled away once his hand began to shake in its place and he attempted to blame it on aging as his eyes watered incessantly.
The ex-monarch shut his eyes and shifted away from his daughter's bedside to take a seat close by. The gummy chair sagged somewhat beneath his weight, but he hardly noticed, deflating with the furniture instantly.
Context: This is a drabble based around the various ideas that King Candy was actually a real character in Sugar Rush, that he was Vanellope's father, and that he was somehow connected to Turbo (if Turbo were using his skin) and had been helpless to do anything but watch Turbo defile the game.
Wreck-It Ralph and its characters belong to Disney.