Happy November!
Ok, so this fic isn't entirely original - I wrote it for the barneyrobin "There's no episode this week; let's entertain ourselves" drabble Drabble-a-thon. But I haven't posted it here, and it's the day after Halloween, so you'll have to cut me a break.
Need more explanation? Ok, here goes: today was my first ever Walk of Shame. Except the only thing shameful about it was that I was clearly wearing last night's clothes in a city that doesn't celebrate Halloween, and girls kept looking at me and smirking. Here's the story: two of my friends, who are renting rooms from this caricature of a woman whom we've described as the French Donatella Versace (she's had so much plastic surgery that her face is practically one huge scar), had the house to themselves for the weekend. So of course, they had a party. I went as an angel, wearing a short white beach dress (it has choir-robe sleeves), wings, and crazy sparkly make-up (which got me lots of weird looks on the metro). Good party, lots of fun. Afterwards, we decided to go dancing, all in costume, but when we got there, the club wasn't letting anyone else in and we didn't know where else to look. By that point, the metro had stopped running, so all 8 of us headed over to an apartment that two of the boys shared, which was within walking distance. We slept two to a bed and four on the futon, which was a little crowded but fine, and this morning, after watching Pineapple Express, I had to go home at 1 PM, wearing that same short dress and my coat. It was kind of awkward, more so because I knew what everyone was thinking and it wasn't true.
The point is, I spent most of today lying in bed watching television, so this is what you get: HIMYM, Barney/Robin, post-Shelter Island, unexpectedly depressing, possibly partly because I did not like that episode. PS: Barney used to be really lame, guys. Early-season-1 Barney is the friend who thinks he's awesome but isn't, and is always hitting on girls who wouldn't give him the time of day. I like him better now. :P
One:
She plops herself down, alone, in the booth, sipping slowly from the glass in her hand. She swirls the amber liquid idly, gazing into it as though the scattered ice chips would paint out her future (hey, she’d go for anything, right now), mutters, “Fuck it,” and downs the drink in one go.
Two:
She decides there’s no point to going back to the booth; she’ll be back here in minutes anyway. This one she drinks slowly, concentrating on the tingle in her tongue and the bitter taste of the alcohol, focusing all her senses on the glass in her hand and the magical liquid within. It’s gone far too quickly, and the bartender (someone new, someone she doesn’t know) pours her another with a sympathetic grin.
Three:
Halfway through, things begin to look rosier. It’s not like she didn’t see this coming, after all; she just didn’t expect it to hurt. She should know better by now. She DOES know better by now. She just can’t convince the ache in her chest of that. But the alcohol is dissolving that one nicely, so maybe this will work out. She just has to stay drunk until then. She can totally do that.
Four:
The fourth is her traditional tipping point between halfway-there and over-the-top. She normally stops before four, but tonight, there’s no reason to stop and no one to tell her to, so she doesn’t care. She’s going back to an empty hotel room, because, unlike her, Ted has the right to be broken-hearted and they’re all going to be with him. She should, too, because seeing Stella on that ferry hurt her more than she’d have thought possible, but she can’t, not tonight, not after that conversation with Ted. So she downs number four and tries to forget that lonely hotel rooms are only tragically romantic when you’re not staying in one.
Five:
Her senses are dulled enough by now that she doesn’t pay attention when a body slips onto the stool next to hers and orders the same drink as her. She does notice when a knuckle presses lightly on the underside of her chin and an old familiar voice says, “What’s the matter, Scherbatsky?”
“I hurt Ted today,” she says, a little too loud, looking at him bleary-eyed. It’s the truth, after all, even if it’s not all the truth. “I hurt Ted, and Stella hurt him worse, and I feel bad.”
“Hey,” he says, and if she hadn’t seen this side of Barney once before she wouldn’t believe it existed; “hey, it’s not your fault.”
“But it IS,” she says, because he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know that she’s lonely and scared and a failure at everything, and he doesn’t know that she told Ted not to marry Stella before Stella told him that, and that it’s not ok.
“You’re his friend, Robin - he’s asking for you.”
“I can’t,” she says; “not tonight.” She knocks back the rest of her drink, not wincing even a little, and looks him straight in the eye. “Why do you have to be you?”
“What, awesome? I can’t help it, Robin, you know that. You can’t help it, either.”
“You know what I mean.” She slips herself off her stool and wobbles a little, a combination of high-heeled shoes and a headrush of alcohol-laden blood, and steadies herself momentarily against Barney’s knee. (He can feel the warmth of her fingers through expensive trousers.) “You’re…” she trails off and sighs. “Good night, Barney,” she says, and her fingers trail along his leg as she walks off, almost steadily.
She doesn’t know what else she expected from him. What worries her more, though, is when she decided she was allowed to expect anything from him, and that’s what’s breaking her heart.
Need more explanation? Ok, here goes: today was my first ever Walk of Shame. Except the only thing shameful about it was that I was clearly wearing last night's clothes in a city that doesn't celebrate Halloween, and girls kept looking at me and smirking. Here's the story: two of my friends, who are renting rooms from this caricature of a woman whom we've described as the French Donatella Versace (she's had so much plastic surgery that her face is practically one huge scar), had the house to themselves for the weekend. So of course, they had a party. I went as an angel, wearing a short white beach dress (it has choir-robe sleeves), wings, and crazy sparkly make-up (which got me lots of weird looks on the metro). Good party, lots of fun. Afterwards, we decided to go dancing, all in costume, but when we got there, the club wasn't letting anyone else in and we didn't know where else to look. By that point, the metro had stopped running, so all 8 of us headed over to an apartment that two of the boys shared, which was within walking distance. We slept two to a bed and four on the futon, which was a little crowded but fine, and this morning, after watching Pineapple Express, I had to go home at 1 PM, wearing that same short dress and my coat. It was kind of awkward, more so because I knew what everyone was thinking and it wasn't true.
The point is, I spent most of today lying in bed watching television, so this is what you get: HIMYM, Barney/Robin, post-Shelter Island, unexpectedly depressing, possibly partly because I did not like that episode. PS: Barney used to be really lame, guys. Early-season-1 Barney is the friend who thinks he's awesome but isn't, and is always hitting on girls who wouldn't give him the time of day. I like him better now. :P
One:
She plops herself down, alone, in the booth, sipping slowly from the glass in her hand. She swirls the amber liquid idly, gazing into it as though the scattered ice chips would paint out her future (hey, she’d go for anything, right now), mutters, “Fuck it,” and downs the drink in one go.
Two:
She decides there’s no point to going back to the booth; she’ll be back here in minutes anyway. This one she drinks slowly, concentrating on the tingle in her tongue and the bitter taste of the alcohol, focusing all her senses on the glass in her hand and the magical liquid within. It’s gone far too quickly, and the bartender (someone new, someone she doesn’t know) pours her another with a sympathetic grin.
Three:
Halfway through, things begin to look rosier. It’s not like she didn’t see this coming, after all; she just didn’t expect it to hurt. She should know better by now. She DOES know better by now. She just can’t convince the ache in her chest of that. But the alcohol is dissolving that one nicely, so maybe this will work out. She just has to stay drunk until then. She can totally do that.
Four:
The fourth is her traditional tipping point between halfway-there and over-the-top. She normally stops before four, but tonight, there’s no reason to stop and no one to tell her to, so she doesn’t care. She’s going back to an empty hotel room, because, unlike her, Ted has the right to be broken-hearted and they’re all going to be with him. She should, too, because seeing Stella on that ferry hurt her more than she’d have thought possible, but she can’t, not tonight, not after that conversation with Ted. So she downs number four and tries to forget that lonely hotel rooms are only tragically romantic when you’re not staying in one.
Five:
Her senses are dulled enough by now that she doesn’t pay attention when a body slips onto the stool next to hers and orders the same drink as her. She does notice when a knuckle presses lightly on the underside of her chin and an old familiar voice says, “What’s the matter, Scherbatsky?”
“I hurt Ted today,” she says, a little too loud, looking at him bleary-eyed. It’s the truth, after all, even if it’s not all the truth. “I hurt Ted, and Stella hurt him worse, and I feel bad.”
“Hey,” he says, and if she hadn’t seen this side of Barney once before she wouldn’t believe it existed; “hey, it’s not your fault.”
“But it IS,” she says, because he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know that she’s lonely and scared and a failure at everything, and he doesn’t know that she told Ted not to marry Stella before Stella told him that, and that it’s not ok.
“You’re his friend, Robin - he’s asking for you.”
“I can’t,” she says; “not tonight.” She knocks back the rest of her drink, not wincing even a little, and looks him straight in the eye. “Why do you have to be you?”
“What, awesome? I can’t help it, Robin, you know that. You can’t help it, either.”
“You know what I mean.” She slips herself off her stool and wobbles a little, a combination of high-heeled shoes and a headrush of alcohol-laden blood, and steadies herself momentarily against Barney’s knee. (He can feel the warmth of her fingers through expensive trousers.) “You’re…” she trails off and sighs. “Good night, Barney,” she says, and her fingers trail along his leg as she walks off, almost steadily.
She doesn’t know what else she expected from him. What worries her more, though, is when she decided she was allowed to expect anything from him, and that’s what’s breaking her heart.