Chapter Text
Lazy Morning was the town's beloved (and only) coffee shop. It resided in an old building downtown, between an antique store and an ice cream parlor. The coffee shop was a favorite by many for their unique drinks and desserts, none of which Sportacus would touch with a ten foot pole.
He understood that a coffee shop probably wasn't the best place for someone like him to work. He couldn't imagine consuming the same amount of coffee that he'd seen so many people take in. Caffeine caused his heart to race, stomach to hurt, and the crash one experienced afterward was downright unpleasant.
But it was a job.
He was new to LazyTown and only moved there to get away from the city in the first place. He'd take what he could get.
Stephanie loved their new home dearly, constantly telling him how excited she was for summer to end so she could go to school and meet her new classmates. It would be a big change, Sportacus knew, for her to switch from her old school to one that wasn't even a quarter of the size in comparison. But she wasn't fazed by the small town, and he could get used to the quiet.
Milford came from his office in the back, looking a bit preoccupied with whatever paperwork he was dealing with. "Sportacus, have you started closing yet?"
"Ah, not yet. Just about to, though!" He answered, handing a chocolate chip muffin to their last customer of the day.
"Wonderful! We'll work on that and then you'll be done for the day."
Sportacus nodded and began wiping down the counter. "Not you?"
Milford shook his head. "I'm afraid I have some more work to do before I can go home."
"Well, I hope it goes well!" Sportacus offered a smile.
"Yes, me too."
Sportacus was just about finished cleaning for the night when he heard the doorbell jingle at the shop's entrance. He smiled and quickly braced himself as Stephanie bolted toward him.
"Dad!"
"Hello," He said with a laugh as she continued to cling to him. 'How was your day? Were you good?"
Stephanie teasingly waved off the question, so he looked up at her babysitter for the answer. Bessie insisted that Stephanie was better than a lot of the children she'd had the pleasure of taking care of, before she disappeared into the back room with Milford.
Sportacus was so thankful to have moved to a town full of nice people. He hadn't expected his boss' wife of all people to offer to take care of his daughter during the day, but the two seemed to be getting along alright, and Stephanie could be out of Bessie's hair once school started.
"Dad?" Stephanie followed him as he went to hang up his apron. "Can we get ice cream before we go home?"
"Get Ice cream? Next door?"
"Yeah!"
Although he didn’t eat ice cream himself, it was Stephanie's favorite sweet treat. "Are they still open?"
"Uh-huh. The lights were still on when we came in."
Sportacus took a look around to make sure he had finished all of his work. Everything looked pretty clean, in fact he would daresay that the shop started looking cleaner since Sportacus began work there. He'd spent so much time working there instead of doing anything else and seemed to be channeling his pent up energy into cleaning, of all things.
"Um," It was summer, and it was Friday. A little ice cream trip couldn’t hurt. "Alright! Let's go."
She cheered and the two of them raced to the ice cream place, taking all but a few seconds to get there.. They walked in, a familiar chime of bells rang as the door opened and closed behind them.
A tall man stood up from behind the counter, or tried to before he knocked his head against a shelf below. He grunted before standing up, rubbing at the back of his head. "I was actually about to close up . . ." He said. He took a look at the two of them and seemed to change his mind, face softening at Stephanie's pout. "But as long as you don’t take too long, I guess."
"Sorry that we came in so late. I work next door and we just finished closing up ourselves," Sportacus explained as Stephanie excitedly looked at all of the flavors in the case.
"Ah, you're the one who just moved here." He didn’t look up at Sportacus, instead keeping his eye on the ice cream case.
"Yes, that's us!" Sportacus raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure if this man didn’t like him, or was just suffering from an end-of-the-day exhaustion, but either way he was acting odd.
"Can I get a scoop of strawberry?" Stephanie asked, finally having made up her mind.
"Of course!" Suddenly, the man became a more animated version of himself. He handed her the ice cream in a dramatic and over-the-top way, and giving her the spoon as equally enthusiastically, causing her to giggle at his antics.
Sportacus smiled. "Thank you. how much do I owe you?"
The man's gray eyes stared at him and Sportacus realized it was the first time he actually looked at him since he walked in. He ran a hand through his perfectly-styled hair, clearing his throat.
"Don’t uh, don’t worry about it. Welcome to LazyTown."
"I can't let you do that!" Sportacus chuckled. But the man seemed tired enough that he didn’t want to argue. He could pay him back some other time. "Well, thank you. Have a good night."
"You too," He responded with a yawn.
"I'm Sportacus by the way! And that's Stephanie." He gestured toward his daughter, who was now fully-engrossed in her ice cream.
The ice cream man shook his hand weakly. "Robbie."
-----
"He was looking at you a lot," Stephanie said in passing on their walk home.
"Really? I didn’t see him look at me at all."
"That's because he only looked when you weren't."
An observation that was so obvious to his brilliant daughter had Sportacus turning red in his cheeks.
Stephanie had become attached to the place and he found himself in the ice cream parlor several more times through the next few weeks. Each time, the tall, exhausted-looking man waited on them. Sportacus would sometimes catch glimpses of another man of similar stature in the back room of the parlor, and he'd catch Robbie rolling his eyes at the sound of singing that also came from the back.
There were a lot of questions he wanted to ask, but Robbie never seemed approachable about anything other than frozen treats.
And then summer ended.
It was the last weekend before school started and Sportacus wasn’t prepared to send his daughter off. He was glad that she was so excited, talking about all of the friends she was going to make and things she was going to learn. But he was still nervous as any parent would be.
"Daaaaaad," Stephanie groaned with a roll of her eyes. "Let go of me."
At her protest, he pulled himself away from the hug. "Have fun, okay? I'll be right here when you get out of school."
"Okay." She nodded.
"And be good to your teachers, alright?"
"I know, dad," She said impatiently, her eyes darting toward all of the kids making their way into the school. She was eager to get in and not miss out on anything.
He gave her one last crushing hug, "I love you. Have a good day."
She disappeared into the crowd of kids. Sportacus sniffled a bit, only just realizing that he was tearing up. He wasn’t ready to send his daughter to a new school. Heck, he wasn’t even ready to move to a new town, but here they were. Stephanie's excitement seemed to be the only thing that helped him see the good in all of this. The divorce hadn't seemed to faze her, either that or she hadn't sat still enough to process it. Sportacus swallowed the lump of worry that had formed in his throat.
"Yes, you need to go!"
"Don’t argue with me, Ella."
"What did I just say?"
The one-sided argument snapped Sportacus out of his self-deprecating state and he turned to steal a glance. Robbie?
The raven-haired man was knelt in front of a girl around Stephanie's age. She had a defiant look on her face, and her lips seemed to be moving, but Sportacus wasn’t close enough to make out her small voice. Robbie's voice carried throughout the entire school front, it seemed.
"Robbie?"
The same gray eyes looked up, startled and confused. "Oh, hi, Sporta . . ." His face screwed up as he tried to remember his name. Finally, he settled on: "Sport."
Sportacus grinned. Everyone in the town was very nice, but he was relieved to see someone that he recognized a little more.
The little girl in front of Robbie crossed her arms and huffed, mumbling something unintelligible that seemed to get Robbie's attention quite nicely.
"Ella, I swear to God-" but the girl was already stalking away, purple backpack slung over her shoulder. Robbie ran a hand down his face with a groan.
Sportacus grimaced and then found himself biting back an amused grin.
"Every year. Every single year she fights me until I practically have to drag her into that school."
"That's funny, Stephanie couldn’t wait for school. She was talking my ear off this morning because she was so excited."
Robbie scoffed. "Yes, well, Ella isn't a very social kid. Takes after me, I guess."
Sportacus wondered if that was code for 'Leave me alone' but Robbie didn’t seem to be going anywhere so Sportacus didn’t either. The taller man let out a big sigh.
"I'd better get to work and open the shop."
Sportacus checked his watch. "Ah, yes. Me too." he cleared his throat. "See you later?"
"Uh, sure."
-----
It didn’t take long at all for Stephanie and Ella to become good friends. They spent a lot of their time doing their homework at either the coffee shop or the ice cream parlor as they waited for the dads to leave work. Sportacus still had yet to hear Ella talk, but Stephanie insisted that Ella only spoke to her and Robbie.
Sportacus didn’t understand the danger of the two girls' friendship until one night after dinner, when he and Stephanie were washing dishes.
"Dad?"
"Yes, Stephanie?"
"Do you like Ella's dad? Mister Robbie?"
"Of course I do, sweetheart."
"Are you going to date him then?"
Sportacus almost dropped the stack of dishes in his hand. He stared at Stephanie, baffled, as she continued to dry the dishes. The question was such a rational one to her, but to Sportacus . . .
"Where did that come from?"
She caught the look on his face and felt the need to explain herself further in case she was in trouble. "Well! You guys like each other. And neither of you are married."
Sportacus raised a suspicious eyebrow. This sounded like she had spent a lot of time thinking about it, and not by herself. He knew his daughter well enough to spot when she was planning something.
"Stephanie . . ." he said carefully, drawing her eyes back up to him. "Have you and Ella been talking about Robbie and I?"
"Well . . ."
He narrowed his eyes. "What are you planning?"
"Nothing!" She answered, far too quickly to falter his suspicion. "We just- we're worried about you guys!"
"Mhm."
Two days later when evening came, Robbie Rotten himself walked into the coffee shop with a plate of cake in his hand and snow falling off his shoulder. He marched up to the counter as Sportacus swept behind it.
"What's the meaning of this?" He demanded, dropping the plate onto the counter in front of Sportacus. On the plate was a small, decorated cake with the words 'Merry Christmas, Robbie -Sportacus' written on the top in a handwriting that definitely didn’t belong to an adult. Or one child. This cake was a team effort.
Sportacus sighed. "Oh dear."
"Oh dear?" Robbie repeated, flustered. "What is this?!"
"Robbie, look at the cake."
And he did so.
Realization grew on Robbie's face, putting two and two together. "That's why Ella was asking about you the other night." He massaged the bridge of his nose, sighing heavily.
"Stephanie was doing the same." An awkward silence hit the room like a ton of bricks before Sportacus spoke again. "For future reference, I would never give you a cake. Cake is really bad for you."
"Good to know," Robbie responded with a snort.
-----
Sportacus didn’t want to go to the ice cream parlor today, or preferably ever again, after he and Robbie's awkward encounter with the cake, but he had promised to take Stephanie if she got good grades and he couldn’t back out now.
Robbie was just disappearing into the back room as the two of them walked in, the other man taking his place in the front. Sportacus didn’t blame him for running off. It felt like an awkward school crush again.
"Where'd Robbie go?" Stephanie asked.
"He's on break." The man at the counter, who's name tag read 'Glanni', was just as tall as Robbie. He had the same gray eyes a well, but wore much more dark clothing under his apron. "What can I get you?"
-----
He managed to avoid going back as he was busy with work and Stephanie was busy with school and activities. Sportacus thought he was safe from his confused crush on Robbie. That is, until he ran into the guy at the store. Literally.
Their shopping carts crash into each other with a loud metallic bang that echoed throughout the entire store.
"Hey! Watch- Oh, Sportanerd. It's you." His face softened.
"Robbie! It's been a while."
"Yes, I we haven't spoken since our kids tried to parent-trap us."
"What?"
Robbie rolled his eyes. "Never mind. It was nice running into you. I hope your fruit isn't too bruised. See you later."
"Wait, Robbie!"
"What?"
Sportacus stood bravely. "What are you doing for Christmas?"
Robbie hesitated before turning back to Sportacus, bumping his cart into a shelf in the process. "Ella, my brother and I eat dinner together. We don’t have any other family in LazyTown. Why?"
"Stephanie and I will be alone as well. Would you want to . . ." he trailed off, staring at a particularly interesting bunch of broccoli in his cart. "Would the three of you want to come over and spend Christmas with us?"
The question caught Robbie by surprise. "That's nice of you and all, but we have our traditions," He said, gesturing vaguely to his cart full of a soon-to-be unconventional Christmas dinner. "We make pizza together and then watch holiday movies on TV." The fondness in his voice told Sportacus that he wasn’t willing to break tradition that easily.
Though disappointed, Sportacus nodded. "I understand. But if you change your mind-"
"Yeah, yeah."
-----
"Oh, Stephanie, please don’t be upset." He patted her head while she pouted. Sportacus should've known to not mention that he invited Robbie and his family, and that they couldn’t come. It was just setting her up for disappointment all over again. "Christmas will be fun no matter what!"
Stephanie's frown deepened. He didn’t blame her. It would be their first Christmas as a two-person family, and this was probably the first that she thought about it. They were away from the rest of their family, on their own, no one to spend the holidays with but each other.
"Hey," He knelt down in front of his and cupped her face with his hand. Stephanie sniffled. "I know that you wanted to spend Christmas with Ella, but there is nothing we can do about it, okay? I'm sorry. I wanted Robbie here, too." She nodded and hugged his neck.
Suddenly, Stephanie stopped, "Wait . . ." she rushed off to her bedroom before Sportacus could question her sudden revelation. Should he be concerned? Naw, probably not.
-----
Sportacus was attacked by an excited nine year-old on Christmas morning. It was a big change from how she was a couple of days ago, but Christmas had that effect on people. He was just glad that she had stopped moping around.
He laughed and shot out of bed, picking her up in the process. "What are you so excited about?"
"Daaaad! It's Christmas!"
"Is it?" He said in faux confusion. "I don’t know, are you sure?"
"Yeeees!"
"Well, if you say so. Shall we go open presents?" He slung her over his shoulder as she giggled, so much as carrying her to the living room and letting her fall onto the sofa. They both pulled presents out from under the tree and exchanged them.
After presents, Sportacus made them both breakfast and then started getting food ready for dinner. He couldn’t give Stephanie the big family Christmas that she wanted, but he could try to cook everything that she was used to eating on the holiday. The only problem . . . He had never been that great of a cook. Oh well. It would be fine! Sportacus watched Stephanie's mother cook Christmas dinner many times, so it couldn’t be that hard.
That's what he told himself.
And now he was flapping a towel at the squawking smoke alarm.
-----
He knocked on the door with a store-bought cake in his arms. He couldn’t show up unexpected and empty handed.
The only reason they had made it to Robbie's home was because Stephanie and Ella had walked there from school several times, because Sportacus had no idea where the man lived. He trusted Stephanie, but he really hoped that this was the right house.
"I'm not sure this is a good idea," Sportacus muttered.
Stephanie made a 'psh' sound. "What happened to 'Christmas will be fun no matter what', huh?"
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Don’t use my words against me, little one. That’s not fair."
She only smiled smugly.
The two straightened up when the door finally opened, revealing Robbie in a particularly interesting patterned sweater. There was a thump thump thump thump of quick footsteps from behind the tall man before a purple streak pushed past him and attacked Stephanie with a hug.
Both men looked at their kids, and then at each other. Sportacus smiled sheepishly, holding out the cake.
"I know that I said I'd never give you a cake, but the store was pretty bare. The pies were gone."
Robbie scoffed before wrapping Sportacus in an equally as welcoming hug.
"It's good to have you here, Sportakook," He admitted as they all walked inside. He took their coats and draped them over the back of a chair by the door.
"Well, look who it is!" Glanni came out from the kitchen in a dark turtleneck, a big bowl of God-knew-what kind of junk food in his hand. "You're the hot one Robbie's been talking about." He dodged the object that was chucked at him. "Ella said you might show up." and the second object.
"Ella said what?" Sportacus questioned, turning to his daughter who only shrugged innocently.
"Oh, she mentioned that you two might come by. So I picked up some ingredients for white pizza."
"How did you know I like white pizza?" Sportacus asked him, and then looked back at his daughter who was now inching away from him.
"You said you'd keep it a secret," Ella hissed at her uncle. Sportacus' eyes widened, it being the first time he heard her voice.
"Yes, well, tough. I'm bad at keeping secrets. You should know this by now!" He patted her head while she crossed her arms. "Anyway, shall we get started?"
Robbie was busy staring at his daughter, and Sportacus at his.
"Ella . . ."
"Stephanie . . ."
"Did you two plan this?" Robbie asked with his hands on his hips.
"More importantly, Stephanie, did you turn up the oven so I would burn our dinner?"
"Maybe," The girls answered in unison.
Both men were speechless. How could their daughters have planned something like this just so they could all spend Christmas together?
Sportacus sighed. "We'll talk about this later."
Glanni grinned. "So, pizza time?"
-----
The girls ran upstairs to Ella's room when dinner came to an end, promising to come back down for movies later. Glanni was passed out on the sofa, and that left Sportacus and Robbie to clean off the dining room table.
"I didn’t know that you lived with your brother, Robbie."
"You don’t know a lot about me," Robbie said simply as he stacked the dirty dishes. "And I do not live with him. He lives with me."
A smile tugged at Sportacus' lips. "Oh, of course."
Robbie nodded. "He moved in after Ella's mother left. She took Ella for a while and I- well, I wasn’t doing well, so Glanni offered to stay with me."
Sportacus could feel his heart warmed by the show of trust. Robbie was right, he really knew nothing about him and he was flattered that Robbie was willing to share about himself.
"That was nice of him."
"Yeah, and now he won't leave."
Sportacus couldn’t help but giggle.
"Well, I keep him around to watch Ella and pick her up from school, but he's out of here the day she's old enough to stay home alone." There was a fond tone to his voice, no matter the harsh way Robbie spoke of his brother.
The man being discussed snorted in his sleep. Robbie rolled his eyes.
"So, I suppose our kids-"
"Yes, we should probably talk to them."
"Are they wrong, though?"
Sportacus blinked. "What do you mean?" he carefully sat down the tall stack of glasses onto the table.
"I mean, obviously lying, manipulating and trying to start a fire - that was bad. But, you know, maybe we could try uh . . ." Robbie cleared his throat. "Dating?"
"Oh, Robbie, I don’t know." Sportacus wanted desperately to say 'YES!', but it still seemed soon after he and Stephanie's mother separated. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to burden someone else with his family problems, and after he had just made a fresh start for he and his daughter by moving to a new town.
"You're right. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything." Robbie mumbled. He escaped into the kitchen with the dirty dishes. Sportacus followed him.
"I just mean that-"
"No, really, it's fine." Robbie waved a dismissive hand. "Coffee?"
"No thank you. I don’t drink coffee."
Robbie stared at him like he grew a second head. "Don’t you work at- You know what?" He chuckled. "Never mind."