Chapter Text
At least it wasn’t snowing.
Robbie buried his face in his cold hands as he sat on one of the many park benches of LazyTown. It was somewhere around midnight, he was tired and chilled to the bone. Sportacus should be asleep by many hours ago, not that that gave him courage enough to head back to his lair and into the warmth. He hadn’t seen anyone enter the blimp floating above the small countryside town, and so presumed that Sportacus was still in his lair. Waiting to continue whatever hell Robbie had set loose on an ill-advised whim.
It had started with a, rather formally, paper plane shaped letter clutched in Sportacus’ hands and a downturn of his usually cheery demeanour, which had set off several alarm bells for Robbie when he’d found him. Sportacus had a horrible poker face to begin with and smiles were the elf’s default setting, a neutral sober expression signalled seriousness and mild displeasure, and a gloomy expression… Spelled trouble.
Finding out what exactly was wrong didn’t take long.
After a period of illness, which the Faroese elf had been too stubborn about to share with his closest of kin, with his wife being the only exception, Sportacus’ grandfather Emil had passed away during the weekend. Calmly so in his sleep, if Robbie had understood right. Sportacus had been troubled for the past days during their sparse downtime hours after he’d gotten the letter from his family, and Robbie had at least tried to show his support to his boyfriend. As far as he knew how to, after nearly one and a half year as an official couple you’d think that he’d gotten the hang of things. Or, so he’d hoped. He tried, but that didn’t mean that he always got it right, as later events would bear witness to.
Personally, Robbie had only met the grim man once, and the brief experience had been passive aggressive borderlining on escalating into a fight between the elders in the vicinity. And, from what he’d heard of Sportacus’ recollection of his youth as a young elf thirsting for adventure beyond the sea, the old man had been strict and of the old school when it came to disciplining children.
And thus, he couldn’t say that he harboured too much sorrow at the news of the old man’s passing, but Sportacus needed someone when he’d received the message. Even if the elves relation was questionable at best. He couldn’t quite put himself in his partners position, but there was an earnest attempt that Sportacus claimed being all he needed, that the kids and Robbie was enough to cheer him up, and he’d soon bounced back into something resembling his former self, just in time for attending the services…
Robbie did think it had gone a little too smoothly.
At, literally, the last second Sportacus asked him, “would you like to come with me? It’s quite beautiful this time of year.” A big smile on his face, despite the unhappy reason why he had to leave for a period.
Timing, the elf had it not. Robbie said the first excuse that came to his mind, “I was there last summer and nearly lost my privates to the exposure,” and scoffed. Not a complete lie coming from him. If summer was that bad, he didn’t want to find out what winter was like. “Thanks, but no thank you.” It put somewhat of a balm on his guilty conscious. He had good reasons for staying behind, besides the horrid Northern weather.
“It’s not that cold during winter, but, well, okay then.” Sportacus gave him a peck on the cheek before he grabbed onto the rungs of the ladder leading up to his blimp. “I’ll miss you,” he added as he’d stepped upon the first row.
“I’ll miss you too, now get going before they send someone after you.”
It looked like his partner was about to say something, a twitch by the corner of his mouth, before it passed. Robbie leaned in to give him a proper farewell kiss, taking advantage of them being the same height for a change. “Go,” he murmured against his lips and released him. With a quick nod, Sportacus climbed up the ladder and soon thereafter the blimp flew away.
No sooner had the flying death trap disappeared did Robbie feel like his centre had been moved slightly to the left.
He should have gone with him, he sighed wistfully into the cool winter air and trudged back to his lair. But, the local, not quite so redeemed, villain reminded himself, he did have legitimate reasons for staying behind and that were out of his control.
Simply saying that he could not tag along because of the postal office of all things, without further explanations, was out of the question. He’d muttered to himself as he descended, “yes sorry, I can’t accompany you because I’m waiting for a package. And no, you can’t ask me why.” That would just make it sound worse, he argued to himself.
Sometimes it felt like the universe was trying a little too hard on proving its point regarding Robbie Rotten. The only thing that wasn’t delivered straight away, not involved in any schemes or a product of Television Shopping; was ultimately the one and only thing that was delayed by two weeks and counting.
The following morning, dressed in fingerless gloves, padded west and the scarf tied so many times around his neck and chin that it obscured anything below his nose, he took up a perch by the entrance of his lair. Feeling even more off kilter after being kept awake all night by his own buzzing head and the reason why he was able to be up before noon, it didn’t count if you’d never gone to bed in the first place. Whatever, he could nap when the whole ordeal was over with.
It was fine, he told himself for the umpteenth time. It. Was. All. Fine. If Sportacus had really wanted him with him then he would’ve asked sooner, and Robbie would’ve made arrangements.
He didn’t have to wait for long on his perch, however, the moist air trapped inside the scarf against his mouth was starting to become unbearable, when he finally spotted his objective come bicycling in the shallow snow up the sloping road, struggling with every so other pedal. Really, who did that this time of year? Just more proof that something was seriously astray with the town’s services.
If the postman was expecting to send his delivery down the chute as per usual and be done without any personal exchange, then he was sorely mistaken. Robbie had been patient, to say the least. But, passiveness could only get you so far. The wait was getting ridiculous and had already started to infringe on his already volatile routine of cake, brushing teeth, kiss the elf, eat more cake, nap, rinse and repeat. And maybe one or two ploys, he wasn’t retired after all.
“Mr. Rotten?” the man sputtered, when he caught sight of Robbie waiting by the chute.
The postman was a gangly squirrely looking man, shifting his weight from foot to foot and refusing to meet Robbie’s eye, instead darting his gaze around anxiously. Set up a contraption in the mail chute once and people suddenly got nervous.
“Yes?” Robbie drawled, secretly relishing in the fact that he could still inflict some sort of alarm in the general populace of LazyTown.
“Oh, right, uhm, this is for you,” the man clumsily dug up an envelope out of his messenger bag for Robbie.
He yanked it out of the outstretched mitten and tore it open. His excitement deflated like a balloon on the first line of printed words. ‘To whom it may concern. Due to unpaid invoices-’ Another bill from the library, typical. His mood turned sour, he snapped his gaze back up to the retreating mailman. “Is this all there was?”
Escape to his bike having been ultimately intercepted, the nervous man turned around, clutching his bag like it was his last defence. “I’m afraid so, sir.”
“You sure?” Robbie had half a mind to shoot the messenger. Not a figure of speech. “There isn’t a little something at the bottom of that bag of yours?” His voice delivering the sneer hidden behind the fabric of his scarf.
“Yes, you’re, uhm, you’re the last one on my route.” To demonstrate, the man held the bag upside down and gave it a shake. It was, indeed, empty.
Grumbling and swearing under his breath he returned back to his, slightly warmer than outside, home to make himself some hot cocoa to elevate his spirits before he tried to conk out. There wasn’t much else to look forward to and he refused to engage in any, urk, winter activities, which he made sure to inform the brats when the youngest of the bunch came a knocking later on. Emotional notion of feeling touched at being remembered aside, the only good thing about snow, besides stuffing it inside someone’s shirt as petty revenge, was that it muffled noises.
And that’s how the days carried on. At least the kids had wised up by the second day and stayed away when it had become clear that, ‘no, he did not want to watch them play, come back next year!’ Which rang hollow, as next year was less than one month away. He was sure that Sportacus would give him the sober face of mild disapproval the moment after the brats had tattled on him about his foul mood.
The foul mood did not improve. By day three, the day before his partner’s expected return, and the day of when the prelude of ruin began, Robbie threw a tantrum down in his lair.
Tearing the envelope of yet another bill into fine ribbons as an outlet for his frustration made him feel momentarily better, but it was over just as soon as he realised two things. One; he had to clean up the fresh confetti surrounding him. Two; he could have accompanied Sportacus this whole time. Just his luck then, he grimaced as he bent down and gingerly began the arduous task of cleaning up his mess.
“Stupid snail mail… Never going to order anything from those guys ever again…” he grumbled and backed up as he collected the remnants. The only thing that made him feel better was knowing that Sportacus would return soon, back with him. Damn it, he missed him, and he wished that he could’ve at least been able to communicate with him during his absence, but no news was good news at this aspect. Unlike the mail office’s failings. The creeping thought that his order might have been stolen lurked its way inside, but he tried to shake it off. He had awful luck, but surely it wasn’t that bad? Was it?
His worry was cut short when he accidentally backed into a cabinet. Making him yelp in surprise and banging his head on a drawer that came out from the initial impact. Dropping the armful of paper that went flying around him again as he clutched his head and nearly doubled over. “Oww! I knew it, hard labour does not pay off.”
Folding over like that turned out to be for the better, or he would have surely been hit again by the falling object, missing his head by an inch. A thick paperback went down on the floor with a thump among the chaos. Rubbing the top of his head and wincing, Robbie squinted down at the new object before him. “What?” He hadn’t seen that book around before, he didn’t own that many regular books to begin with, and he wasn’t one for buying ones, not when you could get stuff for free by borrowing from the library, which he was probably banned from now, based on one of the many invoices. It must be one of Sportacus’ belongings that had found their way down into his lair, not all too surprising.
Despite what various outdated and misleading sources of folklore claimed, the elf didn’t like being underground all that much. Nor had there been any talks, or visible hints, of wanting to share living space together full time, and yet, which Robbie took as a good sign, a whole deal of his belongings had begun to stack up down there.
Sportacus’ own bookshelf consisted of a repurposed closet that he’d jammed full of books and now he’d started to dump them here instead it would seem. Robbie’s lips tugged into a small smile. When the energetic man-shaped rubber ball got the time to read, was beyond him.
Curiously, he picked it up and turned it over to examine the front of the yellow cover, the crass illustration didn’t impress much, but what first and foremost caught his attention was the crude block lettering, changing between different fonts every other word. The smile vanished instantly. He felt as if someone had pulled the rug from under his feet.
He must’ve misread it. He wasn’t that much of a reader to begin with and he had hit his head only moments ago. He read it out loud, trying to convince himself that he was wrong.
“When… The person you love…” Robbie swallowed, hard, and continued, “is… Mentally ill?”
He read it over again repeatedly. Desperately trying to make sense of it. His hands shook with a tremor going through them as he clutched the paperback. “What the hell?” he said under his breath. He dropped it to the floor again at his feet as if burned on contact. Nope, no. He didn’t want to deal with this. He kicked the paperback in under his recliner with force. Out of sight out of mind.
If there was one thing Robbie was good at. It was ignoring inconvenient or troubling things. He would’ve gone off the deep end years ago otherwise. That… Was perhaps not the best choice of words, if this was what…
No, better forget it all together.
And forget it he did. Until he thought about it again, festering in the back of his mind all the following night.