#this did Not go through the patented Aleinn Editing Process

[aleinnilatibae]

Repair! Sportarobbie! :D

repair. being confined to bed due to injury or illness and hating every second of it.  

This is such a good prompt because NEITHER OF THEM would be good at this, in any way...

Okay this has turned into neurodivergent!Sportarobbie, and you know what? I’m not complaining in the least, thank you indigo.

warning: blood and emergency room mentions

On their first trip to the emergency room, Robbie was PANICKING.

He was trying to hold it together, as the only one in LazyTown with a valid drivers license, while Sportacus pressed a mountain of gauze to his own still-bleeding stomach wound and struggled to breathe through the pain in the passenger seat.

He found himself saying some very un-villain-like things, murmuring things like “it’s gonna be okay, it’s gonna be okay, Sportacus, just hold on, we’ll be there in a SNAP! Just stay with me, stay with me-”

He found himself FEELING some very un-villain-like things while they took him away, a powerful ache in his chest as they whisked him past all of the less-injured people in the ER’s waiting room, down the hall to the triage room.

Oh, who was he kidding. He and Sportacus hadn’t been enemies for some time now, and truth be told? It would be FAR more accurate to describe them as FRIENDS.

Enemies certainly didn’t drive each other to the emergency room, or pace in the lobby waiting for good news about them.

When Sportacus came back after a fretful hour, sporting only a line of stitching across his stomach, Robbie thanked every deity he had ever heard of, and they spend the drive back to LazyTown in pure relief.

“Doctor says rest,” Robbie said gruffly. 

“I will!” promised Sportacus, walking gingerly up the ramp into his airship.

And then Sportacus ripped his stitching out doing a flip, and it landed them in the emergency room a second time.

He smiled sheepishly as he bled all over their tile floor, and apologized to the people who patched him up a second time.

“PLEASE don’t do this again,” Robbie said on their way home.

“I won’t,” Sportacus promised.

On the THIRD trip to the emergency room, Robbie was--well, he was still worried, because tearing stitches HAD to be painful, and dangerous to boot, but mostly he had had it up to HERE.

“Robbie, you really don’t have to go with me this time, I can handle it-”

“No, Sportacus, I want to hear it! I want to hear you explain to this nice lady right here-” he gestured at the receptionist, “-AGAIN, why we are back in the EMERGENCY ROOM for the THIRD TIME!!”

Robbie crossed his arms, and waited.

Sportacus sighed. “I...I had some stitches put in my abdomen, and they got, ah...accidentally torn out. Again.”

“WOULD you like to tell the lady....HOW they got accidentally torn out?!” said Robbie.

Sportacus sighed. “I was doing a flip,” he mumbled.

The receptionist heaved a great sigh, suggesting that she wasn’t paid enough to deal with this.

“Also I am bleeding a great deal, so...I would appreciate it if you could, ah...get me checked in,” asked Sportacus, very politely for a man whose bloodstained shirt was growing more and more bloodstained by the second.

The ride back was...tense, to say the least.

Robbie parked outside of his lair, to the surprise of Sportacus.

“I don’t trust you in your ship,” Robbie said, by way of explanation, “You’re staying with ME this time.”

Robbie lead Sportacus carefully through his lair, to his own barely-used bed.

“Now THIS time,” Robbie said with a beleaguered sigh as he helped Sportacus climb into the bed, “Could you. PLEASE. Stay! Still!”

“I’ll try my best,” Sportacus said carefully.

“N-no! No try! You-y-you-” Robbie sputtered in frustration, then regrouped, with a different tactic. 

“If not for yourself, could you do it for ME?!”

“For you?” asked Sportacus.

“Yes, for ME!” Robbie exploded, “EACH time we have gone to the emergency room, I have to CHOKE DOWN the FEAR that THIS is the time that you’re going to BLEED OUT, or get an INFECTION, or-or-or-” Robbie choked down a sob. 

“So please, for my SANITY,” he said, holding onto his temples, “Can you STAY! IN! The BED?!”

Sportacus looked at Robbie as if seeing him anew. 

“I’m...I’m sorry, Robbie,” he said quietly. “It’s just...I can’t STAND staying still.”

Robbie took a deep, steadying breath. “Yes, I had FIGURED OUT as much,” he said, “After living in this TOWN with you for years. But you’ve...you’ve GOT to.”

Sportacus stared down at his thrice-repaired abdomen, then heaved a despondent sigh.

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it,” he admitted quietly. “I don’t want to hurt you, or-or hurt ME, for that matter, but...it HURTS to stay still, for any length of time.  It crawls underneath my skin, like-like-I don’t know what. And when the ah...pain gets strong enough, and it outweighs the risk of the stitches tearing...I’m going to move.”

Sportacus scrubbed at his eyes, looking defeated.

Robbie on the other hand, stood slackjawed as he FINALLY understood.

Of course! Without his flips, that Sportaflippity was understimulated! And while the urge to do a flip was VERY alien to him, Robbie understood the skin-crawling feeling of understimulation like the back of his HAND!  

“Sporta-all you need is a different outlet!” Robbie exclaimed, turning heel and running excitedly through his lair, HOPING that Sportacus would stay still while he lugged back this enormous purple box.

“What we NEED is ALTERNATIVES!” he said as he returned, taking the lid and tossing it behind him, ignoring the crash as he rummaged through the box. “And boy, have you come to the right PLACE!”

“We’ve got...a heavy blanket! No, no, no pressure on your stitches, but--still could be used for those restless legs, I’ll put that one in the MAYBE pile. But I have a whooooole bunch of stim toys here, that don’t involve your body at all!”

“Stim toys?” parroted Sportacus, looking quite overwhelmed by Robbie’s sudden excitement.

“Of course! I NEVER leave the house without one or two, these days!” Robbie babbled, “You should have SEEN how much my last bill to Stimtastic was, whoo-EE!”

Sportacus was still staring at him like he was speaking a completely different language.

“But anyway,” Robbie cleared his throat, “I figure a guy like you....”

He rummaged, down to the bottom, to the things Robbie himself very rarely used but suddenly lit up in his mind as VERY USEFUL.

“Here,” Robbie said, tossing a ball to Sportacus, “Check THIS out.”

Sportacus caught the knobbly rubber ball effortlessly, examining the texture of its dull rubber spikes by tossing it from hand to hand.

“Oh, that’s nice,” he said, in surprise, rolling the ball over the bare skin of his arms with obvious satisfaction on his face.

“Oh, there’s PLENTY more where that came from,” said Robbie, tossing item after item on the bed.

“This one is supposed to be a hand-strengthening tool, but I don’t really like it much, it hurts my JOINTS, heh heh,” Robbie said, placing the item within Sportacus’ reach, “But you haven’t LIVED until you’ve used the snap-and-click! Oh, and you might appreciate THIS! It may seem ordinary, but if you roll it between your hands, you will see that it turns to-” 

Robbie spent what seemed like hours, explaining and explaining,and was certain that Sportacus would try to make a run for it, but he was...raptly attentive the entire time, asking questions, trying out the things Robbie talked about, keeping that same knobbly ball in his hands the entire time.

“I...never knew that there was another way,” said Sportacus quietly, at the end of it, “To solve....that problem. I never even...considered it.”

“Boy do I remember THAT feeling,” Robbie nodded.

"Want to know what I’m feeling now?” Sportacus asked.

“What?”

Sportacus looked up and gave him a smile. “Hopeful.”

Sportacus reached out his arms for Robbie.

“There’s no way that I’m letting you hug me with TWELVE STITCHES in your stomach,” Robbie warned.

“Not going to,” Sportacus said, drawing Robbie in by a hand and planting a kiss on his cheek.

“Thank you,” Sportacus whispered.

“Hrgh,” garbled Robbie, feeling suddenly disarmed.

Head spinning, heart thumping, he picked up one of the stretchy noodles and nervously wound his hands in it. “W-well, I’m GLAD you’re hopeful, because if you tear your stitches out ONE more time, I will re-stitch them MYSELF! And, I won’t be NICE about it!!”

Sportacus chuckled, “Okay, Robbie.”

Robbie harrumphed, but he still built up the courage necessary to kiss Sportacus on the cheek before he ran off, muttering excuses about finding his knitting needles and forcing Sportacus to learn a LAZIER hobby.

Only problem was, he just couldn’t stop SMILING while he was doing it.