Archive of Our Own ^beta

I.

“This really isn’t my fault,” says Robbie.

“You can’t blame me for this,” says Robbie.

“I had absolutely nothing to do with it,” says Robbie.

Sportacus doesn't answer him. Not at first, anyway. After a moment or two, Robbie actually starts to get nervous. Sportacus has never been the strong and silent type – strong and idiotic, maybe, but definitely not one to keep his mouth shut whenever he feels his useless opinions may be required on any given subject.

But, after what feels like some kind of nightmarish eternity, Sportacus returns admirably to form, sighing slightly and saying, “It really doesn’t matter whose fault this is. Right now, the only thing that matters is getting out of this hole.”

Robbie wants to breathe a silent sigh of relief, but he doesn’t, because if he breathes in too heavily, the hole they’re both stuck in is narrow enough that he might actually touch Sportacus, and then he honestly thinks he might throw up. And then it’ll be him, Sportacus, and the cake he ate this morning all stuck in the hole together, and Robbie has a feeling he won’t like it so much the second time around.

“All right. Fine. Let’s get out of the hole, then. What’s the plan?”

Sportacus looks up at the thin sliver of light filtering down through the trapdoor above. It certainly hadn’t been Robbie’s fault that Sportacus had fallen through it. Who steps on a trapdoor, anyway, even if it’s been placed in the middle of the sports field Sportacus and those little brats are always running all over? At this stage, Sportacus has really no one but himself to blame. Robbie, on the other hand, had merely been dancing a victory jig when he had tripped over and become an innocent victim of circumstance.

“The plan,” Sportacus says slowly – though Robbie supposes he can’t blame him; not everyone can be a genius, after all – “is for me to give you a boost, and for you to reach up, open the trapdoor and climb out.”

Robbie sputters a little. He had assumed the plan would involve Sportacus just leaping vertically straight up out of the hole before returning with a rope to haul him to safety. But this plan sounds suspiciously like it might involve some effort on his part, which is not something he had been prepared for.

Apparently, his aghast expression speaks volumes.

“Do you have a better idea?” Sportacus asks, sounding just the slightest bit exasperated – enough that Robbie knows he shouldn’t push his luck. Not that he really believes Sportacus would flippity-flop away and leave him to slowly become the subject of yet another Lazy Town urban legend about the mysterious yelling from beneath the sports field, but sometimes, you never can tell.

“Okay. Fine,” he grumbles, shifting uncomfortably.

An awkward silence settles between them. Sportacus coughs slightly.

“You have to give me your foot, so that I can lift you, Robbie,” Sportacus explains patiently. Is it just Robbie’s imagination, or is there a slight tightness to his voice?

“Oh! Right.” Robbie lifts a leg hesitantly, unsure where to put it – or any other part of him, for that matter. He really has to re-think his hole-digging strategy. This is just downright ridiculous. What on earth was he thinking?

His foot dangles a whole two inches above the ground, but Sportacus doesn’t seem to be moving forward with the plan.

“Robbie. You have to lift your leg.”

“I have lifted my leg,” he snaps.

“Oh.” Sportacus sounds a little contrite, at least. “Well, I’ll help you.”

The next thing that Robbie is aware of is a hand on his thigh, strong and steady, and it’s hoisting his leg up. It’s probably an exceedingly gentle leg lift by Sportacus’ standards, but it’s a lot more than Robbie is used to, and his hip groans in protest.

“You seem a little… stiff, Robbie,” Sportacus tuts. “Maybe we should work on your flexibility.”

Robbie rolls his eyes. “Fine. You can bend me in all the shapes you like if you just get me out of here,” he mutters irritably.

There’s a brief pause. “What?” Sportacus says, his voice about three octaves higher than it usually is.

Robbie has the horrified thought that perhaps Sportacus thinks he actually wants to do something about his lack of overall athleticism – but he’ll deal with that later. Sometime when he’s not stuck in a hole where his only means of escape might be convincing a hyperactive sports elf he actually means what he says.

“Sure, whatever. Flexibility training. Nine o’clock every Tuesday. Now, are we getting out of here?”

“Okay, Robbie.”

The next thing he knows, Sportacus’ grip on his foot has tightened and he’s being thrust into the air completely independently of his own volition. The top of his head smacks against the bottom of the trapdoor, but he barely has time to snarl out a watch it before Sportacus’ apology is drifting up from somewhere below him, sounding slightly… muffled.

“You’ll have to speak up, Sportaflop, I – uh.”

He comes to the swift and terrible realisation that the obstruction hindering Sportacus’ clarity of speech is his own crotch, pressed as it currently is into Sportacus’ face.

He clears his throat. “Never mind.”

Sportacus doesn’t respond, and it’s probably for the best, all things considered. He just steadies Robbie by gripping his butt with his strong, firm hands, and Robbie really wants to adjust his position slightly so that he’s more stable, but any movement on his part will just literally rub Sportacus’ nose in his junk.

Robbie takes a brief, excruciating moment to wonder who this situation is more awkward for, before deciding that no, it’s him, it’s definitely him.

He twists awkwardly, trying to get his hands on the trapdoor mechanism without dislocating his shoulder. Clearly the idiot elf hadn’t thought through the minutiae of his plan before thrusting Robbie crotch-first into his own face.

The only thing he can really do now is try to get this over with as quickly as possible. And hope that Sportacus never, ever tries to make eye contact ever again. Ever.

Reaching up, Robbie puts the entirety of his deliberately enfeebled upper body strength into pushing at the trapdoor. Muscles flex, tendons strain. A groan of maximum effort wends its way up from the depths of his very soul.

The trapdoor doesn’t move an inch.

He allows himself a brief moment of pride: he builds a good, solid trapdoor. The kind of trapdoor any self-respecting villain would be proud to have in his arsenal. But Robbie is very quickly reminded that reality is no respecter of genius, as Sportacus decides that now is a good time to start delivering helpful hints.

“Have you tried –”

“Stop talking. Now.”

“But –”

“Nothing! Nada! Zip it! You are hereby forbidden to move your mouth until further orders.”

Sportacus, bless his heart, seems to catch on that his nattering is proving just a little awkward in the whole scenario, and he stills. Robbie studiously ignores what feels suspiciously like a nervously-twitching moustache against his thigh.

There’s nothing for it but to try again. They have to get out; the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.

He heaves against the trapdoor, the exertion bringing forth sweat from his brow and an exceedingly manly grunt from his chest.

It’s no good; the door is wedged tight. His imagination, active at the best of times, is now painting all kinds of lurid pictures of the excruciating fate he will be forced to endure, at least until Sportakook passes out and dies from an apple deficiency, which, going on previous form, will be within the next five minutes –

“Mr Rotten? Is that you?”

He scrunches his eyes against the searing light that pours in from above. He can’t see his liberator, but the nasal voice is unmistakable – the yellow one, whatever his name is.

“What are you doing down there?” A pause. “Oh. Hello, Sportacus.”

“Hi, Stingy.” Or at least, that’s what Robbie assumes Sportacus says; he’s still talking directly into Robbie’s crotch, and Robbie will have to take some serious revenge on him later for this. The kind that involves sugar apples and hundred-foot-high cliffs.

Robbie squints at the yellowish shape hovering above him, haloed by the sun. My saviour.

“How did you manage to get the trapdoor open? That thing’s heavy!”

The kid shrugs. “Well, I just pushed down on it, and it fell open.”

Down?

Robbie does not allow himself to reflect overly long on the implications of this. Instead, he simply scrabbles at the loose dirt of the sports field until he somehow manages to haul himself over the lip of the hole and to freedom. That done, the only thing he really feels like doing is lying there like a beached whale until the end of all things, but the thought of any potential conversation he could have with Sportacus after their recent experience sends a cold shiver down his spine. Reaching deeply into reserves of energy he had not previously been aware of possessing, Robbie scrambles to his feet and sprints away. Somewhere behind him, he hears Stiggy’s voice, plaintively asking, “But Mr Rotten, aren’t you going to –”

“Whatever,” he yells over his shoulder, without breaking stride.

There are some conversations he just doesn’t need to have.

II.

Despite gleefully admitting at every opportunity that he is a villain, Robbie has always considered himself more sinned against than sinning.

Nonetheless, he is beginning to think that he must have done something truly and spectacularly awful in a past life to deserve the farce that his current one is rapidly becoming.

It had all seemed perfectly reasonable at first – the perfect crime of opportunity.

He’ll never understand why on earth anyone still lets Mayor Meanswell have any responsibility for anything in Lazy Town. But as long as the man had clearly left the door of the school sports equipment shed just slightly open, Robbie would have been remiss in his duties as the town villain if he hadn’t immediately snuck in there and started letting all the air out of every soccer ball in sight.

With any luck, Sportaloser would try to kick one, and then the vile thing would simply roll limply along the ground like a dead fish instead of shooting into orbit, and he’d be so embarrassed he’d have no choice but to leave town. Possibly forever, but at this stage Robbie would be happy with a couple of days.

But of course, because this is his life, things hadn’t gone in any way according to this extremely well-thought-out plan. The last thing he’d expected after he’d dashed inside the shed was to turn around and come face-to-face with the blue buffoon himself, loitering suspiciously behind a rack of curling brooms. Though, Robbie supposes, if he’s being honest, ‘inside a sports shed’ is probably one of the more likely places Sportacus would spend his waking hours.

But that doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it.

“Sportaloon,” he hisses accusingly. “What’re you doing here?”

Sportacus coughs, looking everywhere except at Robbie’s face. “Well, I saw you coming, and I –”

He breaks off, glancing guiltily at Robbie before quickly looking down at his shoe.

It takes a while for his words to sink in, but when they do, Robbie sputters, “Have you been avoiding me?”

Robbie is offended.

The sheer nerve of it! Sure, Robbie had leapt into a trash can a couple of days back when he saw Sportacus flippity-flopping down the street, but he’s a villain. He’s supposed to lie in wait for the hero while he hatches his nefarious schemes.

This whole thing is the blue dolt’s fault, anyway – he was the one who grabbed Robbie while he was trapped and helpless, and ravished him under the guise of getting Robbie to ‘help’ him in their escape. He should be on his knees before Robbie right now, grovelling for forgiveness.

Robbie taps his foot. The desired grovelling is not forthcoming; Sportadork is merely twitching nervously, mouth opening and closing but no words emerging.

Well. As the wronged party here, he certainly doesn’t have to stand for this.

Nose in the air, he delivers his best harrumph in Sportacus’ direction, spinning on his heel and reaching for the door handle.

The door handle responds with an ominous click.

He rattles at it again, more forcefully this time.

Nothing.

“Sportaclod?” Robbie doesn’t move; his eyes remain fixed squarely on the architect of his doom. The door handle stares back at him impassively, almost daring him to pull at it until it breaks clean off.

“… Yes, Robbie?” Sportacus seems to have regained at least some of the power of speech. Robbie’s not sure whether this is a good or bad thing.

“How did you get into the sports shed?”

“Oh! That’s easy. I used a key.”

Robbie spins to look at the man. He’s still standing there with the same inane expression on his face, making no move to solve the situation whatsoever.

He sighs. Spells it out slowly, like he’s speaking to a toddler. “The key. Do you still have it?”

“Right here.” Sportacus pulls it from… somewhere… and Robbie grabs at it, almost dropping it in his feverish desperation to just be gone from here.

He barely registers the next words as he scrabbles at the door handle, trying to fit the key in. “But Robbie, it only unlocks from the outside. There’s no keyhole on the inside.”

That’s fine – with how hard Robbie is jabbing the key at the handle, he’ll probably create a hole for it to fit into soon enough.

Sportacus doesn’t touch him, doesn’t make a noise, but Robbie can feel him up close behind him. Way too close. And then that ridiculous voice is in his ear.

“The key won’t work. We need to find another way out.”

He turns slowly, carefully. He’s certainly not above taking full advantage of his height, forcing Sportacus to crane his neck back in order to look him in the face. Well, too bad. It’s his own fault for getting up in his business.

Sportacus takes a step or two back, and Robbie basks in the full glow of his victory.

Action is required. Sportacus is starting to gather all two of his wits together, and that just won’t do. Robbie has to keep him on the back foot, keep him stupid and pliable.

Not that that should be too difficult.

He casts about the small storage shed, his eyes flitting over its contents, allowing his oh-so-brilliant mind to synthesise all it perceives into one pure, exquisite plan of infinite intricacy –

“Ah.”

Baseball bat. Window. Got it.

He hefts the bat with a grin, giving it a few gentle practice swings within the cramped confines of the shed. He can see the cogs turning in Sportacus’ head: the moment of confusion, followed by the puppy-dog excitement of seeing Robbie actually pick up a piece of sports equipment, followed inexorably by more confusion, then the final oh crap of realisation –

“Robbie, no!”

“Robbie, yes!” Robbie growls, swinging.

Sportacus ducks effortlessly beneath the bat – he could at least pretend to be a little afraid of it, Robbie thinks irritably – and interpolates himself between Robbie and the window, hands raised in appeal.

“Robbie, you can’t break the window! That’s school property!”

He shrugs easily. “So?”

Sportacus looks scandalised. Clearly, the thought that Robbie might not see the error of his ways, repent, and prostrate himself before him hadn’t crossed his mind.

Robbie raises the bat again, and he’s just about to find out whether Sportadoof is willing to put his life on the line in order to keep a window unmolested –

“Oh!”

… That’s not Sportacus.

“Oh, Milford!”

Definitely not Sportacus.

Everything seems to happen at once – two figures press against the outside of the window, making sickening smoochy noises, and Sportacus takes advantage of his distraction to grab at the baseball bat, pulling it towards himself.

Robbie, for his part, manages to keep his hands on the bat – sharing a town with that yellow brat means that he’s become accustomed to keeping a firm grip on all of his possessions – and finds himself stumbling straight into the strong, sturdy, appallingly muscular arms of Sportacus.

He looks up into Sportacus’ eyes. The horror he sees there, he knows, is a perfect mirror of his own.

He’s still not going to let go of the bat, though.

Which, in the end, turns out to be his downfall.

Despite the… things that the Mayor and Ms Busybody are doing outside (which Robbie really does not want to consider too closely, lest he never feel clean again), they’re obviously still aware enough of their surroundings to have noticed that they’re not alone. They jump apart, turning, their eyes staring through the window, as if boring directly into his soul. Sportacus seems to be motionless with shock: mouth ajar, eyes wide, biceps frozen mid-bulge.

For a long moment, nobody moves. The silence is broken only by a weak, protracted, “Ohhhh, my.”

Just for a second, Robbie feels like he’s having an out of body experience: his consciousness detaches itself and travels free from its physical constraints, looking down upon the tableau before it.

And it doesn’t like what it sees.

“This… this really isn’t what it looks like,” Sportacus says, letting Robbie go while at the same time jumping about a metre in the other direction.

Robbie is caught on the horns of a dilemma, as he considers joining in with Sportacus’ fervent denial, while also being tremendously affronted that the blue idiot would be so quick to disavow the idea that anything untoward was happening.

Sporta-asshole should be so lucky, he thinks to himself sulkily as he gets to his feet, gingerly dusting off his derrière as Sportacus does his best to explain to the Mayor that he’d really, truly appreciate it if he could use his key to free them from this hellscape they seem to have stumbled into.

Mayor Meanswell seems only too pleased to have the focus of attention removed from what exactly he and Bessie had been doing on school grounds at this late hour, and, mercifully, unlocks the door. Sportacus steams out of it like a cat chased by a hose, a distant thank you drifting back to them on the wind.

Robbie himself, collecting whatever dignity is left to him, saunters casually out, trying to look as if everything is exactly as he intends it to be. He is aware, dimly, that offering any kind of explanation at this stage will only make things worse – and yet, words still seem to be coming out of his mouth.

“I was just checking the sports equipment,” he says.

The Mayor and Ms Busybody say nothing.

“For holes,” he says.

Silence.

“It could happen.”

Still, there is nothing. Robbie can see Bessie’s finger hovering over the dial button on her phone.

“All right. Well. Bye. Whatever,” Robbie mutters, turning away.

The last thing he hears is Ms Busybody’s voice, drifting to his ears like a bell tolling, personally, for him.

“Hello? Stina? You’ll never guess….”

III.

Death is upon him.

“Farewell, cruel world. I was too fabulous for you, too handsome and talented. Adieu. Adieu.”

He feels Sportacus’ eyeroll more than he sees it. “Robbie, we’re not going to die.”

Robbie pauses mid-swoon, swivelling his head to scowl at Sportacus. “Says you.”

“Says this temperature reading! Look, it says five degrees Celsius. Where I come from, that’s a pleasant spring day.”

“Where you come from, people walk around in short sleeves in freezers –”

“It’s a fridge, Robbie –”

“In freezers, you’re walking around in short sleeves in a freezer, with your arms just exposed for all the world to see!” He huffs. “It’s disgusting.”

Sportacus shakes his head, and if Robbie didn’t know better, he’d almost think the blasted elf was smiling.

Robbie can’t even imagine what there is to smile about in this situation. Going back over the events that had led them both here, he realises he’s not even sure how this happened. The only thing he does know is that the icy hand of death is – literally – upon him, and Sportacus is standing in front of him, actually smiling about it.

Maybe the idiot has a death wish. That certainly would explain a lot of his behaviour.

Well, Sportakook can court his own demise all he likes. Robbie, on the other hand, has no intention of going out this way. He has always imagined his death would come at the ripe old age of ninety-nine, of heart failure, having tried to eat his way out of an enormous blancmange.

“Robbie, I promise you, we’re both going to be fine,” Sportacus says again as Robbie slides down the wall to sit on the floor, curling into himself to conserve body heat. Oh God! He’s shivering. Is his vision getting dimmer? He can’t tell. Is that a symptom of hypothermia?

“Look, I can even turn the temperature up a little, if it’s bothering you.” Sportacus pauses. “Though it’d be a shame to spoil all the food in here.”

Robbie moans faintly. “It’s no good. Nothing can save me now.”

“Is there something I can do to help?”

Robbie considers. “No. No, there’s nothing.” He closes his eyes. A strange calm settles over him. “It’s too late for me. Save yourself.” He reaches one weak hand out beatifically. “Promise me you’ll live, Sportadoof. Promise me that you won’t look back. Promise me that you’ll… be happy.”

He goes limp. This is it, then. This is The End.

This is… a piece of material flopping down upon his head?

Confused, he forces open his heavy eyes one last time. Peering out from amongst a soft sea of blue and white – are these clouds? Is he in Heaven? – he squints upwards, to behold the golden figure of God.

Well, the bronzed figure.

… Wait, God goes around shirtless? Truly He must approve of Robbie’s pranks, to be treating him to an afterlife such as this.

God pronounces, “You can wear My shirt if you want to.”

Robbie looks vaguely down into his hands. Oh. So that was what had landed on him – a blue and white shirt. Holding it up, Robbie realises it looks very familiar, somehow….

Oh. Oh God, no.

Robbie realises that he might not be dead, but it is entirely possible that he is, nonetheless, in Hell.

Sportacus is smiling down upon him, hands on his hips, looking disgustingly… perky, and, obviously, completely shirtless.

“It might help keep you warm!” he says brightly, making an encouraging gesture. “Though I really don’t think –”

“Stop,” Robbie says, his fingers twisting in the material of the shirt, his eyes screwing shut. “Just… stop. Please. I’m begging you.”

“Robbie, I’m just trying to –”

Robbie doesn’t care to hear what Sportacus is trying to do. He only knows that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong with his life, and he seems to be powerless in the face of it.

“It’s not fair,” he murmurs, mostly to himself.

“What was that, Robbie?”

“I SAID, IT’S NOT –”

He’s interrupted by the sound of the fridge freezer door opening.

“See, Robbie? I told you we’d be fine!” Sportacus sounds ebullient. Robbie is glad someone, at least, is pleased with the situation, as he raises his eyes to see one of the girls – the loud one, whatever her name is – her face twisted up into a sneer of revulsion.

“Really, guys,” she says, rolling her eyes disgustedly. “Could you please get a room.”

Robbie doesn’t even have the energy to argue with her. “Whatever,” he mutters.

IV.

The last few days have been very… trying.

Could a villain just visit his friendly neighbourhood cake shop without attracting stares from the local populace? Could he? Robbie knows he’s the closest thing Lazy Town has to a celebrity, but do they really have to gawk at him like that while he’s simply out minding his own business? Is it possible for them to just let him live?

If the cake situation in his lair hadn’t been so dire he wouldn’t have emerged at all. The last thing he wanted was to run into literally anybody at all.

Not after the recent spate of… incidents.

Worst of all, he might actually happen to catch sight of Sportacus. The thought causes a cold sweat to break out across his brow, and for a moment, he honestly feels queasy.

There are certain things he does not need to be reminded of. Sportacus’ unclothed torso being first among them.

Cautiously, Robbie peers around a corner, but there’s no one in sight. They’re probably all off constructing castles out of pineapple slices, or something equally asinine.

Unlikely as it seems, the coast is, for once, clear.

He tries to settle on a bench, but it isn’t long before he feels the telltale prickle on the back of his neck that means that someone is looking at him.

He turns to see three pairs of eyes – belonging to Pink Girl, the computer one (who he’s sure is the person responsible for the drone that once flew into his head), and Loud Girl – all staring at him from over the fence.

“What do you brats want?” he snarls, and is more than a little irritated when they don’t appear even the slightest bit fazed.

“We were just wondering,” says Pink Girl, a large smile on her face, “if you’d seen Sportacus around recently.”

Robbie stares at them. What fresh hell is this?

“Why on earth should I know where that ridiculous fool is?” he snorts, delicately lifting a forkful of cake to his mouth. “I don’t know, and furthermore, I don’t care.”

Pink Girl raises an eyebrow. It appears to Robbie as if it is the eyebrow of Judgement itself. Next to her, Loud Girl mutters something just below his hearing. Which, on reflection, he thinks is probably for the best.

“Okay, Robbie,” the pink one says, smiling brightly, before standing and skipping away, her cronies in tow.

Robbie scowls at her departing back. Clearly, she gets her brains from her uncle.

V.

It’s dark. It’s so very, very dark. And yet, it’s also warm.

Robbie doesn’t know where he is, or how he got here. He only knows that he’s pressed against something that’s firm and unyielding, and yet, somehow, moulded perfectly to his body.

“What’s happening?” he murmurs, blinking in the darkness that surrounds him.

“This is.” The voice drifts to him as if through a haze of smoke, even as phantom hands move across his back. He shivers as one hand slips up over his neck, cradling the back of his head and pulling it inexorably forwards. “You’re not stupid, Robbie. You know exactly what is happening.”

Robbie freezes, his heart pounding in his ears. That voice.

“Oh nooooo,” Robbie groans, as he feels the slightest brush of a moustache against his cheek. He racks his brains trying to work out what’s going on, but everything is just one big blank. The only thing he knows is that the hole – or wherever they are – is so small that the pair of them can barely refrain from touching each other while standing stock-still; and that no matter where he tries to turn, Sportacus seems to inhabit all available space, his breath hot against Robbie’s neck.

“Don’t fight it, Robbie,” Sportacus whispers, his fingers curling through his hair. “You know you want this.”

Robbie opens his mouth to deny it. For the sake of his own sanity, he has to deny it. But the words get stuck in his throat, and all that comes out is an awkward honking sound.

Because – because – oh God, because the idiotic blue buffoon is right. He does want this. More than he’s ever wanted anything in his life, and he’s wanted some things pretty darn badly –

Sportacus’ lips are warm and firm against his own, and Robbie’s mouth opens to them with a sigh. Muscular arms encircle him, and strong fingers dig into the small of his back, pulling him even tighter against Sportacus’ body.

Sportacus pulls away again all too soon, leaving Robbie gasping for breath, his lips still seeking Sportacus’ in the dark.

“You see, Robbie,” Sportacus whispers, the pad of his thumb tracing along his jaw. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Robbie blinks at him for a long moment, taking in the playful look in his eyes, the gently twitching moustache, the winsome smirk.

“Shut up,” he growls, “and kiss me.”

He leans forward, closing his eyes, parting his lips, feeling the soft warmth of Sportacus’ breath against him…

… Sportacus’ mouth tastes strangely furry this time around. For someone who’s always banging on about the importance of dental hygiene, he seems to have sorely neglected his own.

He pulls back a little, but the taste is still there. He doesn’t want to open his eyes – opening his eyes means acknowledging that this is real, that this is happening and he is a willing participant – but really, this is just gross.

He pries one eyelid open.

“Sportadick, you have got to –”

Sportacus is very… orange. And fluffy.

Two eyes open now, and… oh.

How unfortunate.

Spitting orange fluff from his mouth, Robbie lets his eyes close again, his head falling forwards in frustration. Getting into the occasional awkward exchange is one thing, but debauched dreams that lead into him getting far too intimate with his recliner….

Maybe it’s time for him to take a good, long look at himself. Face up to some things he’s been pushing aside for too long.

Or maybe….

Maybe he just needs to never dream again!

Yes. That will fix everything.

Horrified, he realises that his head is nodding already, trying to drag him back to that dreamy idiot with his stupid big blue eyes and strong, strong muscles.

Even as he leaps out of the recliner, a traitorous voice in his head whispers that Sportacus would be proud of how fast and how far he just jumped.

Coffee. He needs coffee.

He sprints over to the kitchen, and chugs yesterday’s coffee straight from the pot in one long series of gulps, not caring as it cascades down his chin and over his pyjamas.

Slamming the pot down with a gasp, he searches the kitchen desperately, sowing destruction in his wake.

“A-ha!”

A jumbo-sized jar of instant.

He plunges his hand into the jar and pulls it out again, shoving a sweet, sweet handful of coffee into his mouth. Nectar of the gods.

At this rate, he won’t ever sleep again. He won’t go outside again, either. Just him and his lair for company. The perfect life!

No more Sportacus. No more flippity-floppity of his heart every time the fool goes by. No more abs sculpted by Michelangelo himself. No more stupid platitudes and idiotic grin. No more strangely endearing moustache – dumb moustache. No more strong hands gripping him tightly and pulling him close to that muscular chest every time he falls off something. No more mysteriously getting stuck in small spaces that are really too close for comfort.

He goes to collapse into his chair, before catching himself just in time. He can’t sit – he might fall asleep.

Maybe this plan has a few more holes than he thought.

… Nah.

It’ll be fine.

VI.

Four days.

That’s how long he’s been awake.

Or at least, that’s how long he thinks he’s been awake – he’d sort of lost track of linear time around day two and a half, around the time he’d started seeing double and stopped being able to tell whether the buzzing in his ears was tinnitus or the sound of his own racing heartbeat.

Maybe the human body isn’t supposed to ingest this much coffee.

But now, there’s nothing left.

Robbie stares down into the empty jar, a tablespoon still clutched in his hand.

It had been such a brilliant plan – such a masterful plan. But sadly it just hadn’t taken into account that his lair contained only a finite amount of coffee.

Robbie scrapes morosely at the sides of the jar, looking for any granules he might have missed. Or at least he tries to – on the first two goes he misses the jar completely, and on the third his fingers are shaking so violently that any coffee that might have been on the spoon has fallen entirely off by the time it reaches his mouth.

Tilting his head back, he raises the jar with trembling hands and shakes it over his open mouth. Licks desperately at whichever inner parts of the jar his tongue can reach.

Nothing.

Sluggishly, his brain drags its caffeine-addled, sleep-impoverished way to the ghastly realisation that, if he wants to get enough coffee to keep himself awake for all eternity, he is going to have to leave the lair.

Never in all his darkest days has his future looked so bleak.

Hurling the coffee jar aside, he staggers stiffly in the general direction of the pipes. Refusing to sit down for several days has done a number on his muscles, and his eyes can’t quite seem to focus; but he seems to have the gist of it, levering himself into the pipe without too much trouble and spidering his way up.

Sure, his whole body is afire and he’s shaking like a leaf, but he’s getting there. He must be at least three feet up already.

A treacherous voice in his head whispers to him that this is all wrong – that he’s supposed to climb a ladder to get out of here, not inch his way up the inside of a pipe – but it’s the same asinine voice that says ludicrous things like you probably wouldn’t feel so cruddy if you got some fresh air and maybe you shouldn’t try to survive on ground coffee alone and at least try having some water with that, for crying out loud and just go make out with Sportacus already and end this farce, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to listen to any of its idiotic natterings.

Ha! What a joke. He is a villain, he has the strength of ten men, he does what he wants –

The beepings and thumpings echo weirdly above him, growing louder, and oh, it’s fine, he’s just hallucinating from the sleep deprivation again, these things happen –

The metal of the pipe gives a tortured screech as something large and heavy skids and slows above him, something blue and –

No. NO.

A primal scream tears itself from his throat as Sportacus comes to a halt directly above him. He can’t see his face, but he’d know that rear end anywhere.

The smallest of small mercies – the crystal stops its infernal hooting – but it also takes with it the small amount of light it was casting. Now, there’s only whatever light can manage to creep its way from the bottom of the pipe to illuminate the smooth, taut curves of Sportacus’ butt –

To light his way back out of the pipe, damnit –

He can feel said butt brushing ever so slightly against the top of his head, impossibly muscular and perky. It clenches a little, quivering with the exertion of keeping its owner in place and not crushing Robbie into an ecstatic pile of goo.

His chest heaves in something suspiciously close to a sob. He’s so tired. So, so tired.

“Robbie? Is that you?”

It’s no good: the sob breaks free, echoing through the small space of the pipe.

“Go away,” he yells, directing his futile rage upwards at the twin orbs of Sportacus’ buttocks.

There’s a pause. Sportacus might be re-arranging himself slightly.

“My crystal told me you were in trouble,” his voice drifts down a second later. “Are you… stuck? In this pipe?”

“Well, I wasn’t,” Robbie mutters, though he honestly doubts Sportacus can hear him.

Sure enough, a cheerful, “I’m sorry, could you speak up?” filters down to him, and Robbie rolls his eyes derisively, saying nothing.

“Ah – wait a moment!”

Robbie scarcely dares to wonder what exactly Sportacus might be telling him to wait for, but then he hears a shuffling sound, followed by a loud bang, and then an inane, “Hi, Robbie!”

Robbie looks up – agog – to see Sportacus’ madly grinning face looking down at him, through the gap in his own parted and upsettingly muscular thighs.

“What are you doing?” he screeches, his voice reverberating around them.

Sportacus seems infuriatingly unperturbed. “Doesn’t this make it easier to have a conversation?”

“That is not the point,” Robbie says, trying to keep his eyes trained directly on Sportacus’ face, looking neither left nor right nor up nor down. “Who said I even wanted to talk to you? I don’t recall telling you that you could just drop into my lair like this, while I’m minding my own business and –”

– Trying to find a way to never sleep again just in case I have yet another erotic dream about your stupid blue self and –

Robbie clamps his mouth shut before the words can move further than his traitorous brain – or at least he hopes he does, because frankly he’s so sleep-deprived and caffeine-overdosed that he’s honestly having trouble telling which way is up anymore.

Not that having Sportacus folded like some sort of obscene origami somewhere in the vicinity of Robbie’s head is at all helpful in that regard.

Sportacus shakes his head, smiling a little. Robbie can see that stern-but-fair look in his eyes – the one he uses whenever he’s trying to encourage one of the brats to discover the moral of the story and come to some sort of conclusion about whatever life lesson it is they’re learning this week, which said brat will most assuredly have forgotten by the time they get home.

“Robbie.” He gestures as expansively as is possible within the confines of the pipe, his transformation into a giant humanoid pretzel now complete.

A giant golden salty warm pretzel, with cinnamon, and whipped cream, and oh God I’m so hungry –

“Hey.” Sportacus snaps his fingers, and Robbie drags himself back to the present. To the straining glutes hovering directly above him, so close that he can almost taste them.

“Robbie.” Sportacus sighs. “We need to talk.”

That gets his attention. He slips a little in his shock, scrabbling wildly to keep himself from being bent at a completely unnatural angle.

“We most certainly do not!”

He gibbers and fumbles while his brain desperately tries to find the words with just the right bite – I wouldn’t be interested in you if you were the last exercise-fixated mythical creature on Earth, you sure do think highly of yourself, ha!, I could never dream of stealing you away from that soccer ball you love so much, dream on, Sportaloser –

But what he blurts out is, if he’s being completely honest, more of a plaintive wail.

“You told the Mayor and Ms Busybody that there was nothing going on between us!”

The words ricochet around the pipe, eventually settling down into nothingness and leaving only an uneasy silence.

Robbie closes his eyes, bites his tongue, deflates.

Well, shit.

It’s out there now, and nothing he can say will take it back, no matter how much bluster or denial he throws out.

All the fight goes out of him.

Best to get this over with, so he can go get some sleep, dreams or not.

He forces his eyes open and looks up, to see Sportacus looking – surprised, yes, but also thoughtful. Robbie can almost see him assessing and discarding the most obvious answer – I said that because it was true, we were just trying to get out of the shed – before taking a tentative breath.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I only said that because I thought it might be a bit embarrassing. I know how much you value your privacy.” He shrugs a little, a rueful smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “It was an embarrassing situation, but not because it was with you.”

Robbie draws in a sharp breath of surprise; and maybe it’s just the caffeine, but it feels like his heart is beating clear out of his ribcage.

“R-really? You mean that?”

“Of course! Robbie, I like you.” It’s hard to tell in the darkness of the pipe, but his face seems to have taken on a decidedly pink tinge, his eyes bright with excitement. It could just be from the fact that he’s upside-down, but a small part of Robbie dares to hope otherwise. “Robbie, I like you a lot.”

“Huh.” Robbie swallows, his mouth too dry and brain too barren to form proper sentences. “I… uh… I like you. A lot. Sportacus.”

Sportacus beams, eyes crinkling in a most attractive way that is only made slightly ridiculous by his absurd pose. Robbie barks a laugh, weeks of tension starting to ebb away. He’s still not sure this is even real – most likely it’s just an insomnia-induced hallucination, and he’s going to wake up to find himself frenching his pillow again – but it’s a nice hallucination, and he’s decided to roll with it.

And if it’s real… well.

Sportacus shifts a little. “How about we get out of here, and continue this conversation somewhere a little more comfortable? I can’t speak for you, but I know I’m getting tired!”

Robbie knows that’s a big fat lie, but he appreciates the out that Sportacus is giving him. He yawns boredly. “Me? Oh, I could stay here all day. But if you’re getting tired, then I guess we’d better get moving.”

If he were to be honest with himself, he’d say that he could definitely get used to the way that Sportacus grins lopsidedly.

Good thing he doesn’t go in for that honesty crap.

“Thanks, Robbie. You’re a good guy.”

“Hey!” He might be getting sickeningly mushy, but he is not a good guy. “You take that back.”

Sportacus holds up his hands in apology. “Sorry! You’re the biggest, baddest guy around, Robbie.”

“You’d better believe it,” he grumbles. He stares past the amazing ass and into those big blue eyes, and a smile bullies its way onto his face before he can stop it.

Oh. Oh, God. Oh, gross. Kill me now. Ugh.

Sportacus smiles back, and it’s knowing, damn it. “Your place, or mine?”

Robbie is not spending a moment longer in these pipes than necessary. “Mine.”

“Your place it is!” Sportacus wiggles and bends around in a way that Robbie is sure will lead to dislocations on the other man’s part, but the blue idiot must be double-jointed or something, because suddenly he’s completely upside-down, apparently holding himself up somehow with the sheer power of his leg muscles. Robbie swallows. Hard.

Then a thought occurs to him. “Wait, we could’ve got out of here whenever we wanted?”

Sportacus shrugs. “I thought we needed to talk.”

“We could’ve talked in my lair!”

But he doesn’t want to argue about this. Not when Sportacus is reaching down and hooking his arms underneath Robbie’s armpits, pulling him up until he has space enough to untangle his legs and get fully vertical.

It would be easy enough for Sportacus to release him now, send him sliding down into the lair. But instead he flexes his arms – his strong, sturdy arms, oh wow – and brings Robbie up close to him, brushing their lips together in the gentlest of kisses.

Robbie shivers, and the voice in his head is smug. Told you so.

Sportacus’ voice is soft, but it fills Robbie’s ears. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

The hands release him gently, and he slides down the short distance to the lair, landing in a tired, confused, happy heap on the floor.

He really should move out of the way for Sportacus, but he doesn’t want to.

He waits expectantly, and isn’t disappointed as Sportacus lands on top of him, precisely, expertly, covering Robbie entirely and pinning him to the floor while not hurting him in the slightest.

Sportacus grins into the kiss, and Robbie smiles back, reaching up lazily to pull off his hat. He’s always wondered what his hair looks like under that ridiculous cap –

Sportacus pulls back, and for a moment, Robbie worries that he’s crossed some invisible line; however, Sportacus just licks his lips and shakes his head in slight confusion.

“You’ve been… drinking a lot of coffee?” His eyes trail down Robbie’s front, and Robbie remembers the pot of coffee that made its home on the front of his pyjamas.

Oh.

He shrugs sheepishly. Hopes it comes off as charming. “A bit.”

Sportacus scowls, and God help him, it’s cute. “When did you last sleep?”

He clears his throat. “I choose not to answer that question on the grounds that I may incriminate myself.”

Sportacus tuts, moving back so that he can pull Robbie to his feet. “You are going to go to sleep now, and no, I am not going to take no for an answer.”

Robbie protests as he’s led forcefully to his recliner, but really, he does actually feel like he could sleep, for once. He can’t even remember why he didn’t sleep for so long.

… Oh, right. The dreams. The dreams where he and Sportacus were doing all sorts of terrible, horrible, amazing things to each other.

Suddenly, he can’t even fathom why he hasn’t been sleeping 24/7 these past few days. What is wrong with him?

Sportacus shakes his head in exasperation. “Do I even want to know why you haven’t been sleeping?”

He smirks sleepily up at Sportacus. “I also choose not to answer that question, on the grounds that I may further incriminate myself.”

The man’s eyebrows go up into his hairline, and it’s good to know that at least he hasn’t entirely lost his ability to fluster the idiot. Let him spend his time wondering about just what Robbie has been up to the last few days.

Hopefully his imagination provides something a little racier than ‘eating raw coffee grounds and sobbing in sexual frustration’.

“And Robbie, you have to drink some water. I’m not carrying you to the emergency room when you pass out from dehydration.”

He huffs. “I don’t have water here.”

“You don’t have – no. I’m not going to argue about this right now.” He pulls a water bottle from somewhere on his person, and shoves it into Robbie’s hand. “Here. Drink.”

He shudders, but it’s clearly the only way he’s going to get Sportadork off his back. Plus – and he’ll never admit it – but he thinks he could actually use it. However many days of nothing but dry coffee has not done his mouth any favours.

He pushes down his revulsion and swallows the entire bottle’s worth in one long, slow series of gulps, solely because he knows that Sportacus is watching his throat bobbing with each swallow, licking his lips unconsciously, his cheeks flushing.

Finishing it off, Robbie sighs in feigned satiety and wipes his mouth, even as his tastebuds rebel. Sportacus is staring at him from underneath that endearingly ridiculous mop of hair, and Robbie smirks.

“Goodnight, Sportacus.” He flops back down on the recliner, loose-limbed and inviting. Sportacus looks down at him, longing written clear across his face; when he lies down and insinuates himself behind Robbie, it’s clear that he’s torn between his need for Robbie to get a good night’s sleep, and his desire to keep him very much awake for the rest of the night.

Robbie smiles in smug satisfaction. Villainy takes many forms, and he is really good at all of them.

He’ll make it up to him in the morning. His pride just needs one little victory for now.

Just as he drifts off to sleep, he hears Sportacus’ voice softly in his ear: “Remember – tomorrow’s Tuesday.”

Tuesday? What the hell is Tuesday?

His confusion must be broadcast loud and clear on his face, because Sportacus grins ear to ear when he cracks his eye open slightly to look at him.

“Time for your flexibility training – nine o’clock sharp.”

Sportacus’ grin takes on a slightly wicked aspect, and, despite the rising panic Robbie feels in his chest, he also feels just the slightest bit of pride.

If Sportacus really wanted to, he’d make an almost half-decent villain.

Yawning hugely, he lets his eyes fall closed, enjoying the feel of Sportacus against him. He definitely does not snuggle back into him.

Maybe he’ll even dream.