Too Much
Barney can hear Robin talking and laughing in the next room and it makes him feel locked out. He clamps his jaw shut when Lily asks him what's wrong, affects a casual smirk and bites back the bitter words he wants so desperately to let out. He says nothing about how he wants to tear down the world right now and lose himself in a desperate rage.
It's better if he doesn't say anything. His big mouth's already gotten him into enough trouble this summer. He made a simple decision to say those three words - "I love you" - each one weighted, sharp, with the ability to savage even the most gentle of hearts.
Robin's not gentle.
Robin's smile is large and confident and teasing and mean. Robin sees him for what he really is, the loser, the one who's already laid out all his cards on the table, holding nothing back. He gave away too much. Every time she gives him something - a smile, a kind word, the tiniest shred of attention - he's so pathetically grateful.
He takes a bottle of water from the refrigerator and heads back into the living room. Robin's sitting talking to some loser who's not even trying to pretend he's not staring at her boobs.
"Falling in love with a one night stand? Could that be any more cliché!" She says and Barney winces. It's such an obvious dig at him.
But he clamps his mouth shut because he's learned his lesson
way too late, locking the door long after his heart has bolted.
Not Enough
Robin's mouth runs away with her and yet she finds herself revealing only fragments of herself - like patches of earth illuminated beneath a flickering flashlight. The truth comes in fits and starts, the grunt and groan of water through broken pipes in an old boiler. Nothing flows as smoothly and freely as it should.
Anything she says to Barney doesn't seem like enough.
He's been so quiet lately. He said what he needed so say, concisely, eloquently. He won by knockout, before she'd even strapped on her gloves.
She's playing catch up now, dancing and spinning and sparkling, trying to be witty and catch his attention. But he stands at the back of the room - tall and lean and effortlessly elegant, and she feels like a messy kid playing in a sandbox in comparison.
Ted brings her a beer and asks her what's wrong and, naturally, Robin babbles and knocks over the bottle, soaking the dork who's been hanging on to her every word.
"Are you okay?" Ted asks her.
Robin gulps. It all hits her at once - how ridiculous she's being. And she kind of knows why. "Falling in love with a one night stand? Could that be any more cliché!" She says, then she drops her voice, leaning into Ted. "Oh god, what am I going to do?"
Ted smiles at her. "Tell him?"
Robin shakes her head while Barney looks on, an unreadable expression in his blue eyes.
How can she? He's been with so many women. How could she expect him ever to settle with just the one?