Work Text:
There is only so much you can do to help someone who doesn’t want to get better.
This is not about someone who is experiencing a setback, nor about someone who is plateauing in their personal improvement. This isn’t even about someone who is losing a fight—that means that they are fighting, that they are trying to go in the direction opposite to the way they’re being pulled. No, this is about someone who fights against a full recovery, who drags themselves back into the river that tried to drown them, who wallows in the mud of misery and ignores the hand trying to lift them up and help clean them off.
This is about Robotnik.
Agent Stone does not want to think about Robotnik like that, so he does not. He ignores the growing mess around the doctor’s favorite chair. He does not comment on how unhealthy it is to only eat microwave-from-frozen food. He stops setting out clean clothes when Robotnik wears the same outfit for days at a time. He no longer suggests activities that would make the doctor feel better, like going for a walk or playing dance music. Stone doesn’t ask anymore about Robotnik’s mood, or when he last slept, or if he has ideas for a new invention, or when he last drank water, or—well, anything.
Stone does his job. He keeps his eyes out for tech that’s fallen into lesser hands. He stays on top of maintaining the badniks and works on blueprints for new creations. He plays physical therapist and nurse and errand boy and he loves it. He has always loved working for Robotnik, and now he loves watching Robotnik refuse the future he planned for himself, and reject every effort Stone makes to improve his life in the Crab, and he just can’t wait to wake up every day and watch the doctor self-sabotage in the same ways over and over again, even though Stone is right there-
...to say Stone is frustrated would be an understatement.
He wants to say that Robotnik is simply tired of fighting. The physical recovery took a long time, his injuries were extensive and his body will be feeling the effects for a longer time yet. The body can’t help but be chronically fatigued when working overtime to heal wounds that are constantly hurting; it’s only natural that it skews every neurochemical to be as depressed and inert as possible. And Stone won’t deny that the doctor suffered some hard hits to his psyche on top of the physical trauma. But…
Robotnik is aware. He knows all of this. Stone tried to explain it to Robotnik as a sort of pep talk, to encourage the doctor that he can recover, he just has to overcome these factors and he’ll be conquering the world in no time! And Robotnik… didn’t care. He didn’t wantto overcome them. He found himself at rock bottom and instead of grabbing the rope Stone threw down to him, he alternates between sitting comfortably and seeing if he can dig any further.
Binge-watching an overdramatic show is mind-numbing and keeps him from facing the harsh reality of his failures. Eating flavor-packed junk food provides a series of addictive dopamine hits that temporarily override any bad feelings. Exercise isn’t as easy as it used to be; he hates this reminder and thereby avoids it. His hair growing out is a tangible, measurable unit of how much time he’s lost to this depression pit he’s dug out for himself. On and on, every terrible symptom and detrimental habit is explained and intellectualized by the doctor himself and Stone doesn’t have a choice but to recognize: Robotnik does not want to get better.
It’s… difficult. To say the least.
Agent Stone does not want to give up. He was the runner-up for Robotnik’s Award for Excellence in Personal Assisting for seven nearly-consecutive years; quitting is simply not in his nature. But that reward was earned when Robotnik gave him a hard time for existing, for being dumber and less-than. He could stand to be second place to a machine (being the only human acknowledged for the reward was an honor in itself, really). Stone can weather being berated any day of the week. What Stone can’t stand is seeing the doctor be harsh on himself.
Stone had tried encouraging words. He meant them, every one, but Robotnik wouldn’t hear it. Every time, his words were either deflected or twisted back around into insults. So Stone stopped. He’d give positive feedback on the rare occasion Robotnik was looking for it, but no more “motivational poster platitudes,” as the doctor had put it. The fewer opportunities Robotnik has to talk poorly of himself, the less Stone has to hear it.
...so maybe he’s being a little selfish in how he’s dealing with it. But what else can he do?
Stone does his job. He keeps things running in the background. He stays in low-power mode, not carrying out any real plans without the doctor’s say, but monitoring and managing problems as-needed. He goes to the grocery store. He makes a latte. He pretends that the doctor is going to get better soon, that he’ll finally get tired of the mess and the lack of conversation and will turn on some music and start up a new project. He keeps his distance from bad moods and stays nearby when pain flares.
He can’t help, not in the way he wants. Not in a way Robotnik will accept.
But to give up is to leave. To give up is to find a new job, a new life, knowing the doctor is out there with no one at his side (or, worse, knowing he isn’t out there because no one was at his side). To give up is to say, “Good luck piloting your Mecha-Crab while learning exactly how dependent you are on me!”
Stone isn’t going to do that. He can’t. He won’t.
He isn’t giving up on Robotnik. He’s staying, he’s working, he’s keeping things going.
There’s only so much he can do for someone who doesn’t want to get better, and he’s going to keep doing it.
And when the doctor finally does decide to get better, Stone will be there to help him with it.