Number Sixty Six (8/?)
Title: Number Sixty Six (8/?)
Author: Stablergirl
Rating: MA
Pairing: Barney/Robin
Disclaimer: These do not belong to me at all. I pilfer and plunder with zeal.
Author's Notes: Sorry this took me so long, folks, but here we go. Thousands of thanks to
roland44 for an amazing beta job. And thousands of thanks to everybody who's been reading this and commenting I can't tell you how much it means.
::WARNING:: This story contains violence and abuse. Please use your discretion.
Chapter 8: The eldest oyster winked his eye and shook his heavy head.
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“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.
/|\
Barney pushes his hands into his pockets and he tilts his head, he takes in the look of her.
“You have two choices right now. You can explain to me what the hell is going on,” he offers, “or you can listen to a long speech about honesty and the meaning of life - which I have rehearsed and which runs about seven minutes and forty seven seconds, give or take.”
He watches her open her eyes, look at him, stay quiet and careful.
He inhales a deep breath.
“Robin since the dawn of time…”
“My father was waiting for me in my dressing room this morning,” she interrupts.
Barney waits for the rest, raising his eyebrows at her, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, accidentally impatient, but Robin just stands there, strangely motionless, her jaw clenched tight and rigid.
Barney squints at the cut on her lip.
“So, what? You two put on your Red Sox jerseys and took a stroll through the Bronx?” The joke is delivered without any humor -flat - his stare locking onto hers, looking carefully at the tears suspended in her eyes, refusing to fall. He wishes everything in life could just be easier, less loaded with misfortune and stubborn silence.
He feels something tightening inside of him. Worry, maybe.
Worry, probably.
Because he knows a few things.
He knows this didn’t happen in a boxing ring.
He knows something isn’t right.
Robin doesn’t breathe, and he knows a few things.
\|/
“I can’t explain myself I’m afraid, sir” said Alice, “Because I’m not myself, you see.”
“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar.
/|\
“My father was waiting for me in my dressing room this morning,” she repeats again.
She speaks slowly, and he thinks it’s with some sense of obligation, some forced kind of repentance for a list of sins she’s been carrying around, penance for the ways she thinks she’s wronged him. She speaks slowly because he asked her to explain and he almost doesn’t like the feel of it, doesn’t like the way the fight has drained out of her so quickly. He watches her eyes look down, tracing the patterns of scuffmarks left behind from years of traffic here, years of people wandering this hallway, leaning, thinking, forgetting.
The hands of her move, then.
She pushes up her sleeves - slow, deliberate.
Barney’s mind starts working, starts arranging pieces and moments like playing cards on a table, jacks lining up beside queens and kings bumping up against dark colored aces. The frown in his eyes deepens, hits his lips, pulls at his brow.
He knows a few certain things and he feels worry tighten his stomach.
Her eyes lift to lock on his, brave and steady and unwilling to waver, and Barney looks down at her forearms.
Barney looks down at her forearms and all at once he knows plenty.
Now, all at once, he knows plenty.
Barney blinks.
He can't feel his own heart beating.
\|/
“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.”
“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar.
/|\
Her stare never leaves his face and the tears hanging in her eyes don’t fall because she chooses not to blink.
There are unmistakable bruises forming - hand prints wrapped around her forearms like serpents, like living breathing things.
Now Barney Stinson knows plenty, and he feels himself go perfectly still. He blinks at her and his eyes are fixed hard on her face - locked there, waiting.
“He hits you,” Barney states.
She doesn’t have to answer him because he can tell from the look on her face that he’s right. He can tell from the way her mouth quirks to the side slightly and the way her eyes squint in a challenge and the way her fingers curl up into her palms - making fists against her thighs - he can tell by the way he sees pieces of himself in her.
He’s right.
He sees red.
God, he sees red and he has to look away from her - just for one second, just long enough that he can...he shakes his head...just long enough that he can gather up some other reaction...
He feels the world stop rotating beneath him and he looks back at her face, searching, checking. It knocks into him hard like falling from the top floor of a building, the air leaving his lungs in a whoosh and his hand reaching up to rub at his forehead like that will do something, like that will help.
He gulps in air.
He sees red.
He doesn’t know what to do with this worry of his, with this sudden pounding of an over-protective pulse in his veins, with the way he wants to wrap her up and keep her, hide her, help her out of this and out of here and into some other place.
He doesn’t know what to do with the way he’d like to show no mercy, take no prisoners, tear buildings to the ground, demand some sort of retribution and settle this score that’s been rigged unjustly in someone else’s favor.
He doesn’t know what to do with the way he’s in love with her like this.
He would stand in front of a bus for her, he thinks now. He would take a bullet. He would dive head first into the East River if he thought it would help something.
He clenches his jaw and he looks at her hard.
“Jesus, he hits you,” he sighs out unhappily with water in his eyes, and there’s a sinking feeling with this kind of realization. There’s an unfortunate understanding that settles in.
Things about Robin Scherbatsky fall into place.
He understands, now. He understands things like her bad taste in men, her commitment issues, her fascination with violence and self defense and weapons and guns, her constant need to have an escape route mapped out to a drastic location like Argentina or Japan, her disgust with having kids, the silent inexplicable bond that had formed between her and Barney without any real effort at all…
The way Barney sees pieces of himself in her.
It all falls together and he falls a little more in love with her. He hadn’t thought that was possible.
Standing up straight he adjusts his tie and he clears his throat. He thinks: pull it together. He thinks: give her what she needs.
He would stand in front of a bus.
“You’ve gotta say something,” he tells her, decisive, “You have to call the police.”
She rolls her eyes and it’s endearing - calming, somehow. It’s the old Robin. It’s the little pieces of her New York City self shining through and it’s a comforting kind of sight for him so he finds himself inhaling a deep breath, settling a little, remembering the ground beneath his feet.
“Nobody’s telling anybody,” she states, “it’s fine.”
He clenches his jaw and he pins her with a piercing kind of look. “It’s not fine,” he corrects, his voice dropping into something low and serious, “It’s the opposite of fine.”
He means it and it shakes her into silence.
She chews at the skin inside of her cheek.
She’s young, suddenly, and she’s unsure, and he watches her, studies her, takes in these pieces of her she usually hides so masterfully. He wonders if she could ever understand how he sees her - who she is to him. He wonders if she’ll ever get it. He guesses probably not.
He watches her and he studies her and she wavers, wilts before his eyes. She loses that New York City flare so that her eyes on him are eight years old and she’s biting down harder and the water inside of her is threatening to fall.
He watches her, he studies her, she's his weakness and he sighs.
He changes his tone to give her a break, to give her a reprieve, to lessen the strain he can see on her face. He lightens up a little.
“Ok, so, where is he?” he asks, “I’ll kill him,” and this pulls a laugh to her mouth, light and soft and fond of him, and he feels his stomach flip because of her.
It wasn’t entirely a joke but he winks at her anyway, enjoying the light he sees returning to her eyes.
She laughs. Light and soft.
He watches her, and she watches him, and it’s airy and grateful for a second, teasing and flirting for a second, Robin and Barney and old times - like weeks ago - just for one second, but then all at once it shifts and her teeth are back to chewing on her cheek and it’s weighted and heavy and his throat tightens up - pulls at his lungs, nudges his eyes and makes him have to swallow some lump of a foreign kind of empathy.
Her gaze drifts back down to the scuff marks on the floor.
“It’s been ten years, you know?” she says quietly, “And I honestly didn’t think he would still…” she shakes her head and drifts into silence.
\|/
“You’re thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can’t tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.”
“Perhaps it hasn’t one,” Alice ventured to remark.
“Tut, tut child,” said The Duchess, “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”
/|\
There are moments in life sometimes when understanding settles in. There are moments when a person who has been one thing morphs into something else entirely and the effect of it gathers into clouds that cover the sky, raining change down onto other paths.
There are these moments.
Barney had experienced his first at a young age - maybe six or seven - when he’d realized things about mothers and fathers, realized things about brothers and skin color, realized the nature of midnight visits from strange men and the nature of hushed conversations overheard through sunrise-colored walls…slamming doors…awkward breakfast tables. At a young age - maybe six or seven - Barney had learned new things and Barney Stinson had changed.
He’d learned new things again when he was twenty three and foolishly in love, or twenty three and broken hearted. Barney had learned, then, what women want. He’d learned what men do to give women what they want. He’d learned that all’s fair in love and war and that people don’t give a shit about you even if they say they do. People change their minds and if a guy wants to stay on top he just has to beat those people to the punch. Pick a new girl every night, turn down nine out of ten business offers, call himself awesome in thirteen different languages and then leave the room before anybody can question him. Reject before he’s rejected.
Shannon taught him how to protect himself. Barney Stinson had changed.
But now, he’s older. Now, there’s this.
Now there’s this, and now he’s learned things about Robin Scherbatsky and he can hear the shifting. He can feel something falling away - making room for new realizations and new definitions of things.
There are times that turn boys into men.
There are moments that bring a sudden ageing and a sudden kind of maturity.
There are instants that bring clarity crashing into hazy minds, and now - for Barney Stinson - protecting himself seems like a silly notion.
Eventually, he guesses, there comes a time in a man’s life when it’s less important to protect himself and more important to protect the people he loves.
He would stand in front of a bus for her.
He would jump into the East River.
He feels himself growing up.
“It’s been ten years, you know?” she says quietly, “And I honestly didn’t think he would still…”
She shakes her head. She clears her throat. He watches her pull the pieces back together and tape them up, hastily repair the shell of her, make it so that nobody will know as she pulls the sleeves of her sweater back down and huffs a dishonest kind of laugh.
“Don’t say anything, ok?” she requests, hard, not really meaning for it to be a question.
Barney watches her. He studies her. He nods his head because he recognizes this and he knows about dusting off tragedies and heartache, standing up and shaking off the weight of worlds from heavy shoulders. He knows about this so he nods and agrees even though part of him thinks she should open up her mouth.
She’s pulled the sleeves of her sweater back down but part of him can’t stand burying this up, now. Part of him knows he hasn’t given this the attention it deserves, the care he thinks it needs.
He feels himself growing up.
He takes a step toward her, into her space, and her energy hiccups with his nearness. He picks up the arm she’d just let fall to her side - pushing her sleeve back up and sliding his fingers against the irritated skin. He wonders if it will ever be possible…if human beings will ever evolve to the point where one will be able to heal another just from this, just from hands against skin and intention inside of blood.
He wonders if there will ever be a time when Robin can erase all of this from her memory and just…
He wraps gentle fingers around her arm where, once, angry fingers had been.
She’s holding her breath in front of him, but he pays it no mind.
He feels himself growing up.
He lifts her arm and he pulls her hand toward him and he presses a kiss to her palm.
And it’s something he never would’ve done before, something he knows she doesn’t expect. But sometimes other people’s expectations of him press against his eyes, tug on his lungs, latch onto the corners of his mouth and make him frown. Sometimes other people’s expectations of him hold him back and make him less than he’d like to be. So, he ignores the shock on her face and he ignores the tears hanging in her eyes and he presses his lips against her life line - breathing out the hope he has inside of him that it’s long and that it slopes up and away from this, somehow. When he pulls away and looks at her face, when he lets her hand fall from his and hang by her denim-covered thigh, when he reaches out and pulls her sleeve back down her tears are on her cheeks instead of in her eyes and she’s looking down at the ground beneath their feet. She’s looking away from him, deliberate.
“Barney,” she breathes, and he can’t tell if she’s asking him to help her or asking him to stop this, so he just stands there, waiting for more to fall out of her mouth.
She’s quiet after that, though, stubbornly silent, so he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and he backs away.
“It’s ok,” he tells her because he heard her say it once, and her eyes snap to his and she seems to hear that - latch onto it - and it’s grown up and it sounds astoundingly like the truth. He tells her “Don’t worry.” She takes it in. She soaks it up. She stands up tall and she offers him a single nod before pushing past him to the bathroom.
On her way by he feels her hand reach out and wrap around his for just a millisecond, just a moment, just a brief teasing glance of a touch brushing light against his lifeline, and it’s enough and Barney feels himself changing, growing up.
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“But then,” thought Alice, “shall I never get any older than I am now? That’ll be a comfort one way - never to be an old woman - but then…always to have lessons to learn. Oh I shouldn’t like that…”
/|\
Back at the table he doesn’t mention her and when the others give him strange sorts of looks it’s more because he seems different, more because his face is open and serious and settled, more because he’s heart-breakingly human, suddenly, and more because he’s honest than because they wonder where Robin has gone.
They look at Barney and it’s like he’s different from before.
He looks back and he grips hard on his control and he doesn’t say a word.
\|/
“I quite agree with you,” said The Duchess, “and the moral of that is - ‘Be what you would seem to be.’”
/|\
When Robin comes back from the bathroom Marshall is arguing with Ted and Lily over the ever puzzling issue of the Prizzly Bear, and Barney can feel Robin watching him.
He can feel her gaze burning on the side of his face.
He ignores it, he can’t look at her. He can’t risk opening up his mouth with her so close because he’s afraid of what he’ll say. In order to distract himself away from thinking about how much he’d like to go out and find her father right now, he opts to take sides with Marshall in their ridiculous Prizzly-debate. He taps his drink on the table.
“Whoa, whoa,” he mutters, “This is a serious issue. If these things start to multiply the human race is in actual mortal danger, Ted. Wake up.”
Marshall holds his hands up in victory and it seems to double his already intimidating size. “YES!” he shouts, high-fiving Barney and then clinking his beer mug against Barney’s extended high-ball. “Thank you, sir,” he says in a British accent, bowing his head. Barney laughs a warm kind of laugh and shrugs at Lily’s outraged facial expression.
“I just really don’t think we need to move because of it,” she adds through clenched teeth. “There’s only like one in existence at the moment.”
Barney grins.
He pretends he’s not distracted.
The night passes somehow and eventually it’s midnight and Barney is ready to leave, to go home, to absorb all of this Robin he’s had poured out at his feet.
He’s ready to sleep off the adrenaline and surprise of it.
He’s ready to regroup and come up with some kind of plan to help her, to fix this or at least make it better in some miniscule kind of way.
He’s ready to get out from under her watchful eye because he can’t think straight with her sitting so close, with her voice in his ear, with her eyes drifting from him every time he tries to meet her stare. He has to go home.
He’s afraid he’ll offer some piece of himself up to her, otherwise, and he knows enough to know that would be a terrible idea.
He excuses himself, he promises Marshall he’ll check out the youtube video of a Prizzly wandering the mountains of upstate New York, and he tosses a twenty Wendy’s way, telling her to keep the change.
He’s on the stairs outside when Robin’s voice pulls him to a stop.
She says his name - it slides over him like a cool cotton sheet and he’ll never get tired of those syllables on her tongue.
“Yeah?” he asks, turning around, and the wind is practically knocked out of him as she launches forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, hugging him close to her and holding on like she’s afraid that any second he’ll disappear. Once the shock has worn off he hugs her back because he’ll never be able to resist this, pushing his fingers into her hair.
“Barney,” she breathes onto his cheek and a shiver slips down his spine. “I’m so sorry about yesterday.” It’s a whisper and he lets it soothe him a little, lets it reach in and calm his over-active heart, lets it settle the anxiousness and anger he’s felt thumping inside of him like the wings of a caged bird, he lets it linger in his mind and he pulls her just a little bit closer.
He closes his eyes and he smells almonds in the air.
“Ok,” he answers.
Pulling back, she rests a hand against his face and she leans forward just enough to brush a light kiss onto his lips. It’s soft and it’s almost less than real so he opens his eyes just to be sure she’s standing in front of him. She is and he knows, now, that people can heal things just from this. Just with the brush of lips. Just with intention inside of blood.
She means to heal his worry, he thinks, and somehow it works.
“Thank you,” she says.
And then she’s gone and the door to MacLaren’s is swinging closed behind her.
He shakes his head, confused, overwhelmed.
He shakes his head, in love with her.
And then he hails a cab.
\|/
“Would you tell me which road leads out of the wood?”
“What shall I repeat to her?” said Tweedledee, looking round at Tweedledum with great solemn eyes, and not noticing Alice’s question.
“The Walrus and The Carpenter is the longest,” Tweedledum replied, giving his brother an affectionate hug.
Tweedledee began instantly.
“The sun was shining on the sea-“
Here Alice ventured to interrupt him, “If it’s very long,” she said as politely as she could, “would you please tell me first which road?”
Tweedledee smiled gently, and began again.
“The sun was shining on the sea
Shining with all his might…”
/|\
(To chapter 9)
Author: Stablergirl
Rating: MA
Pairing: Barney/Robin
Disclaimer: These do not belong to me at all. I pilfer and plunder with zeal.
Author's Notes: Sorry this took me so long, folks, but here we go. Thousands of thanks to
roland44 for an amazing beta job. And thousands of thanks to everybody who's been reading this and commenting I can't tell you how much it means.
::WARNING:: This story contains violence and abuse. Please use your discretion.
Chapter 8: The eldest oyster winked his eye and shook his heavy head.
\|/
“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.
/|\
Barney pushes his hands into his pockets and he tilts his head, he takes in the look of her.
“You have two choices right now. You can explain to me what the hell is going on,” he offers, “or you can listen to a long speech about honesty and the meaning of life - which I have rehearsed and which runs about seven minutes and forty seven seconds, give or take.”
He watches her open her eyes, look at him, stay quiet and careful.
He inhales a deep breath.
“Robin since the dawn of time…”
“My father was waiting for me in my dressing room this morning,” she interrupts.
Barney waits for the rest, raising his eyebrows at her, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, accidentally impatient, but Robin just stands there, strangely motionless, her jaw clenched tight and rigid.
Barney squints at the cut on her lip.
“So, what? You two put on your Red Sox jerseys and took a stroll through the Bronx?” The joke is delivered without any humor -flat - his stare locking onto hers, looking carefully at the tears suspended in her eyes, refusing to fall. He wishes everything in life could just be easier, less loaded with misfortune and stubborn silence.
He feels something tightening inside of him. Worry, maybe.
Worry, probably.
Because he knows a few things.
He knows this didn’t happen in a boxing ring.
He knows something isn’t right.
Robin doesn’t breathe, and he knows a few things.
\|/
“I can’t explain myself I’m afraid, sir” said Alice, “Because I’m not myself, you see.”
“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar.
/|\
“My father was waiting for me in my dressing room this morning,” she repeats again.
She speaks slowly, and he thinks it’s with some sense of obligation, some forced kind of repentance for a list of sins she’s been carrying around, penance for the ways she thinks she’s wronged him. She speaks slowly because he asked her to explain and he almost doesn’t like the feel of it, doesn’t like the way the fight has drained out of her so quickly. He watches her eyes look down, tracing the patterns of scuffmarks left behind from years of traffic here, years of people wandering this hallway, leaning, thinking, forgetting.
The hands of her move, then.
She pushes up her sleeves - slow, deliberate.
Barney’s mind starts working, starts arranging pieces and moments like playing cards on a table, jacks lining up beside queens and kings bumping up against dark colored aces. The frown in his eyes deepens, hits his lips, pulls at his brow.
He knows a few certain things and he feels worry tighten his stomach.
Her eyes lift to lock on his, brave and steady and unwilling to waver, and Barney looks down at her forearms.
Barney looks down at her forearms and all at once he knows plenty.
Now, all at once, he knows plenty.
Barney blinks.
He can't feel his own heart beating.
\|/
“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.”
“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar.
/|\
Her stare never leaves his face and the tears hanging in her eyes don’t fall because she chooses not to blink.
There are unmistakable bruises forming - hand prints wrapped around her forearms like serpents, like living breathing things.
Now Barney Stinson knows plenty, and he feels himself go perfectly still. He blinks at her and his eyes are fixed hard on her face - locked there, waiting.
“He hits you,” Barney states.
She doesn’t have to answer him because he can tell from the look on her face that he’s right. He can tell from the way her mouth quirks to the side slightly and the way her eyes squint in a challenge and the way her fingers curl up into her palms - making fists against her thighs - he can tell by the way he sees pieces of himself in her.
He’s right.
He sees red.
God, he sees red and he has to look away from her - just for one second, just long enough that he can...he shakes his head...just long enough that he can gather up some other reaction...
He feels the world stop rotating beneath him and he looks back at her face, searching, checking. It knocks into him hard like falling from the top floor of a building, the air leaving his lungs in a whoosh and his hand reaching up to rub at his forehead like that will do something, like that will help.
He gulps in air.
He sees red.
He doesn’t know what to do with this worry of his, with this sudden pounding of an over-protective pulse in his veins, with the way he wants to wrap her up and keep her, hide her, help her out of this and out of here and into some other place.
He doesn’t know what to do with the way he’d like to show no mercy, take no prisoners, tear buildings to the ground, demand some sort of retribution and settle this score that’s been rigged unjustly in someone else’s favor.
He doesn’t know what to do with the way he’s in love with her like this.
He would stand in front of a bus for her, he thinks now. He would take a bullet. He would dive head first into the East River if he thought it would help something.
He clenches his jaw and he looks at her hard.
“Jesus, he hits you,” he sighs out unhappily with water in his eyes, and there’s a sinking feeling with this kind of realization. There’s an unfortunate understanding that settles in.
Things about Robin Scherbatsky fall into place.
He understands, now. He understands things like her bad taste in men, her commitment issues, her fascination with violence and self defense and weapons and guns, her constant need to have an escape route mapped out to a drastic location like Argentina or Japan, her disgust with having kids, the silent inexplicable bond that had formed between her and Barney without any real effort at all…
The way Barney sees pieces of himself in her.
It all falls together and he falls a little more in love with her. He hadn’t thought that was possible.
Standing up straight he adjusts his tie and he clears his throat. He thinks: pull it together. He thinks: give her what she needs.
He would stand in front of a bus.
“You’ve gotta say something,” he tells her, decisive, “You have to call the police.”
She rolls her eyes and it’s endearing - calming, somehow. It’s the old Robin. It’s the little pieces of her New York City self shining through and it’s a comforting kind of sight for him so he finds himself inhaling a deep breath, settling a little, remembering the ground beneath his feet.
“Nobody’s telling anybody,” she states, “it’s fine.”
He clenches his jaw and he pins her with a piercing kind of look. “It’s not fine,” he corrects, his voice dropping into something low and serious, “It’s the opposite of fine.”
He means it and it shakes her into silence.
She chews at the skin inside of her cheek.
She’s young, suddenly, and she’s unsure, and he watches her, studies her, takes in these pieces of her she usually hides so masterfully. He wonders if she could ever understand how he sees her - who she is to him. He wonders if she’ll ever get it. He guesses probably not.
He watches her and he studies her and she wavers, wilts before his eyes. She loses that New York City flare so that her eyes on him are eight years old and she’s biting down harder and the water inside of her is threatening to fall.
He watches her, he studies her, she's his weakness and he sighs.
He changes his tone to give her a break, to give her a reprieve, to lessen the strain he can see on her face. He lightens up a little.
“Ok, so, where is he?” he asks, “I’ll kill him,” and this pulls a laugh to her mouth, light and soft and fond of him, and he feels his stomach flip because of her.
It wasn’t entirely a joke but he winks at her anyway, enjoying the light he sees returning to her eyes.
She laughs. Light and soft.
He watches her, and she watches him, and it’s airy and grateful for a second, teasing and flirting for a second, Robin and Barney and old times - like weeks ago - just for one second, but then all at once it shifts and her teeth are back to chewing on her cheek and it’s weighted and heavy and his throat tightens up - pulls at his lungs, nudges his eyes and makes him have to swallow some lump of a foreign kind of empathy.
Her gaze drifts back down to the scuff marks on the floor.
“It’s been ten years, you know?” she says quietly, “And I honestly didn’t think he would still…” she shakes her head and drifts into silence.
\|/
“You’re thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can’t tell you just now what the moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.”
“Perhaps it hasn’t one,” Alice ventured to remark.
“Tut, tut child,” said The Duchess, “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”
/|\
There are moments in life sometimes when understanding settles in. There are moments when a person who has been one thing morphs into something else entirely and the effect of it gathers into clouds that cover the sky, raining change down onto other paths.
There are these moments.
Barney had experienced his first at a young age - maybe six or seven - when he’d realized things about mothers and fathers, realized things about brothers and skin color, realized the nature of midnight visits from strange men and the nature of hushed conversations overheard through sunrise-colored walls…slamming doors…awkward breakfast tables. At a young age - maybe six or seven - Barney had learned new things and Barney Stinson had changed.
He’d learned new things again when he was twenty three and foolishly in love, or twenty three and broken hearted. Barney had learned, then, what women want. He’d learned what men do to give women what they want. He’d learned that all’s fair in love and war and that people don’t give a shit about you even if they say they do. People change their minds and if a guy wants to stay on top he just has to beat those people to the punch. Pick a new girl every night, turn down nine out of ten business offers, call himself awesome in thirteen different languages and then leave the room before anybody can question him. Reject before he’s rejected.
Shannon taught him how to protect himself. Barney Stinson had changed.
But now, he’s older. Now, there’s this.
Now there’s this, and now he’s learned things about Robin Scherbatsky and he can hear the shifting. He can feel something falling away - making room for new realizations and new definitions of things.
There are times that turn boys into men.
There are moments that bring a sudden ageing and a sudden kind of maturity.
There are instants that bring clarity crashing into hazy minds, and now - for Barney Stinson - protecting himself seems like a silly notion.
Eventually, he guesses, there comes a time in a man’s life when it’s less important to protect himself and more important to protect the people he loves.
He would stand in front of a bus for her.
He would jump into the East River.
He feels himself growing up.
“It’s been ten years, you know?” she says quietly, “And I honestly didn’t think he would still…”
She shakes her head. She clears her throat. He watches her pull the pieces back together and tape them up, hastily repair the shell of her, make it so that nobody will know as she pulls the sleeves of her sweater back down and huffs a dishonest kind of laugh.
“Don’t say anything, ok?” she requests, hard, not really meaning for it to be a question.
Barney watches her. He studies her. He nods his head because he recognizes this and he knows about dusting off tragedies and heartache, standing up and shaking off the weight of worlds from heavy shoulders. He knows about this so he nods and agrees even though part of him thinks she should open up her mouth.
She’s pulled the sleeves of her sweater back down but part of him can’t stand burying this up, now. Part of him knows he hasn’t given this the attention it deserves, the care he thinks it needs.
He feels himself growing up.
He takes a step toward her, into her space, and her energy hiccups with his nearness. He picks up the arm she’d just let fall to her side - pushing her sleeve back up and sliding his fingers against the irritated skin. He wonders if it will ever be possible…if human beings will ever evolve to the point where one will be able to heal another just from this, just from hands against skin and intention inside of blood.
He wonders if there will ever be a time when Robin can erase all of this from her memory and just…
He wraps gentle fingers around her arm where, once, angry fingers had been.
She’s holding her breath in front of him, but he pays it no mind.
He feels himself growing up.
He lifts her arm and he pulls her hand toward him and he presses a kiss to her palm.
And it’s something he never would’ve done before, something he knows she doesn’t expect. But sometimes other people’s expectations of him press against his eyes, tug on his lungs, latch onto the corners of his mouth and make him frown. Sometimes other people’s expectations of him hold him back and make him less than he’d like to be. So, he ignores the shock on her face and he ignores the tears hanging in her eyes and he presses his lips against her life line - breathing out the hope he has inside of him that it’s long and that it slopes up and away from this, somehow. When he pulls away and looks at her face, when he lets her hand fall from his and hang by her denim-covered thigh, when he reaches out and pulls her sleeve back down her tears are on her cheeks instead of in her eyes and she’s looking down at the ground beneath their feet. She’s looking away from him, deliberate.
“Barney,” she breathes, and he can’t tell if she’s asking him to help her or asking him to stop this, so he just stands there, waiting for more to fall out of her mouth.
She’s quiet after that, though, stubbornly silent, so he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and he backs away.
“It’s ok,” he tells her because he heard her say it once, and her eyes snap to his and she seems to hear that - latch onto it - and it’s grown up and it sounds astoundingly like the truth. He tells her “Don’t worry.” She takes it in. She soaks it up. She stands up tall and she offers him a single nod before pushing past him to the bathroom.
On her way by he feels her hand reach out and wrap around his for just a millisecond, just a moment, just a brief teasing glance of a touch brushing light against his lifeline, and it’s enough and Barney feels himself changing, growing up.
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“But then,” thought Alice, “shall I never get any older than I am now? That’ll be a comfort one way - never to be an old woman - but then…always to have lessons to learn. Oh I shouldn’t like that…”
/|\
Back at the table he doesn’t mention her and when the others give him strange sorts of looks it’s more because he seems different, more because his face is open and serious and settled, more because he’s heart-breakingly human, suddenly, and more because he’s honest than because they wonder where Robin has gone.
They look at Barney and it’s like he’s different from before.
He looks back and he grips hard on his control and he doesn’t say a word.
\|/
“I quite agree with you,” said The Duchess, “and the moral of that is - ‘Be what you would seem to be.’”
/|\
When Robin comes back from the bathroom Marshall is arguing with Ted and Lily over the ever puzzling issue of the Prizzly Bear, and Barney can feel Robin watching him.
He can feel her gaze burning on the side of his face.
He ignores it, he can’t look at her. He can’t risk opening up his mouth with her so close because he’s afraid of what he’ll say. In order to distract himself away from thinking about how much he’d like to go out and find her father right now, he opts to take sides with Marshall in their ridiculous Prizzly-debate. He taps his drink on the table.
“Whoa, whoa,” he mutters, “This is a serious issue. If these things start to multiply the human race is in actual mortal danger, Ted. Wake up.”
Marshall holds his hands up in victory and it seems to double his already intimidating size. “YES!” he shouts, high-fiving Barney and then clinking his beer mug against Barney’s extended high-ball. “Thank you, sir,” he says in a British accent, bowing his head. Barney laughs a warm kind of laugh and shrugs at Lily’s outraged facial expression.
“I just really don’t think we need to move because of it,” she adds through clenched teeth. “There’s only like one in existence at the moment.”
Barney grins.
He pretends he’s not distracted.
The night passes somehow and eventually it’s midnight and Barney is ready to leave, to go home, to absorb all of this Robin he’s had poured out at his feet.
He’s ready to sleep off the adrenaline and surprise of it.
He’s ready to regroup and come up with some kind of plan to help her, to fix this or at least make it better in some miniscule kind of way.
He’s ready to get out from under her watchful eye because he can’t think straight with her sitting so close, with her voice in his ear, with her eyes drifting from him every time he tries to meet her stare. He has to go home.
He’s afraid he’ll offer some piece of himself up to her, otherwise, and he knows enough to know that would be a terrible idea.
He excuses himself, he promises Marshall he’ll check out the youtube video of a Prizzly wandering the mountains of upstate New York, and he tosses a twenty Wendy’s way, telling her to keep the change.
He’s on the stairs outside when Robin’s voice pulls him to a stop.
She says his name - it slides over him like a cool cotton sheet and he’ll never get tired of those syllables on her tongue.
“Yeah?” he asks, turning around, and the wind is practically knocked out of him as she launches forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, hugging him close to her and holding on like she’s afraid that any second he’ll disappear. Once the shock has worn off he hugs her back because he’ll never be able to resist this, pushing his fingers into her hair.
“Barney,” she breathes onto his cheek and a shiver slips down his spine. “I’m so sorry about yesterday.” It’s a whisper and he lets it soothe him a little, lets it reach in and calm his over-active heart, lets it settle the anxiousness and anger he’s felt thumping inside of him like the wings of a caged bird, he lets it linger in his mind and he pulls her just a little bit closer.
He closes his eyes and he smells almonds in the air.
“Ok,” he answers.
Pulling back, she rests a hand against his face and she leans forward just enough to brush a light kiss onto his lips. It’s soft and it’s almost less than real so he opens his eyes just to be sure she’s standing in front of him. She is and he knows, now, that people can heal things just from this. Just with the brush of lips. Just with intention inside of blood.
She means to heal his worry, he thinks, and somehow it works.
“Thank you,” she says.
And then she’s gone and the door to MacLaren’s is swinging closed behind her.
He shakes his head, confused, overwhelmed.
He shakes his head, in love with her.
And then he hails a cab.
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“Would you tell me which road leads out of the wood?”
“What shall I repeat to her?” said Tweedledee, looking round at Tweedledum with great solemn eyes, and not noticing Alice’s question.
“The Walrus and The Carpenter is the longest,” Tweedledum replied, giving his brother an affectionate hug.
Tweedledee began instantly.
“The sun was shining on the sea-“
Here Alice ventured to interrupt him, “If it’s very long,” she said as politely as she could, “would you please tell me first which road?”
Tweedledee smiled gently, and began again.
“The sun was shining on the sea
Shining with all his might…”
/|\
(To chapter 9)