A/N: Inspired by a prompt on the BarneyRobin LJ.
"You okay?" Robin drops onto the couch next to Barney and smooths the wrinkle from his sleeve. His shirt is blue Egyptian cotton, soft to her touch, firm muscle beneath it.
He answers with a shrug. "I'm great." Two blinks, in quick succession, followed by a twitch of his jaw.
"Nope." She brushes fine white hairs from the blue of his sleeve. "Remember all that crap about always being honest with me? I am fully prepared to put our wedding video on the giant screen, in case you need a reminder."
He covers her hand with his. "Leave it, okay?"
"Okay," she whispers, and it's quiet for a moment, deep, solid quiet. No rustling of crumpled paper, no happy squeaks, no crunching of vegetables. Damn, even she misses Fluffernutter, and it hasn't even been five minutes. She tries to remember how long it takes for the elevator to get from their floor to the lobby, estimates how long it would take her to run down the fire stairs, runs that figure against the elevator's best time. Nope, not even if she slid down two of the railings. "You could have said no."
"No, I couldn't." More white hairs sprinkle the gray flannel of his pants, the gray of the couch cushions. "You saw Eli's face. I'm not going to break a little kid's heart. That is true boy and bunny love, right there." He jabs his index finger in the direction of the door. "Well, not right there, right there. In the elevator. Probably what, fifth floor by now?"
More likely sixth, because they'd have had to stop on the seventh floor. Neither rain nor sleet nor dark of night would stay Dr. Casey in seven G from his four-thirty Sunday jog. Two guys with two kids, a carrier and a rabbit hutch wouldn't even slow him down. "Yeah, fifth floor," she echoes. It had been true boy and bunny love in this apartment, too. "You're a good uncle."
His only response is a tic of his cheek. He strokes one hand over the frayed trim on the throw pillow between his hip and the armrest of the couch. "You were right," he says at last, his words slow, "Apartments are not a rabbit's natural habitat. James and Tom have the house and the fenced yard. They have their own organic garden. Fluffernutter can have fresh veggies every day."
She holds back on telling him that's not exactly how gardens work. The farmer's market will produce more than the corner of James and Tom's yard, but Tom knows his way around a bag of fertilizer. Maybe Barney isn't too far off on this one. "We can still see him all the time," she says, but that sounds lame. "I mean, not all the time, like every day, but pretty often. Birthdays. Christmas. Dia de Los Mofos?"
"Muertos," he corrects her with the barest hint of a smile. "Tom's Puerto Rican, not Mexican. November first is just the day after Halloween to him."
"So? Half price candy at the Rexall. You're the only one who ever buys the fun sized packets of gummi bears. We can see him them. Bring him a little bunny suit for a costume."
Barney's thumb rubs back and forth over the chewed corner of the pillow. He doesn't say anything. She bumps his knee with hers. He doesn't bump back. Maybe he's mad. Maybe he hates her now. She knows what it's like to give up a pet, give up five of them, and she made him do it. She had her reasons, both the ones she'd mentioned, and the ones she hadn't. The chewing, the pooping, the psycho binkies; how can something as insane as racing around the apartment and flipping up in the air get a cute name like binky? "Costumes are for Halloween, not the day after."
"I know that." The words came out too fast, too sharp. Didn't mean they couldn't get a bunny suit, couldn't bring it over for Halloween. Barney would be the one in charge of getting the suit on Fluffernutter, though. No way was she signing herself up for that mess. 'You probably want to be alone for a while, right?" She scooted onto her own cushion. Dr. Casey said they were always welcome to run with him. This might be a good time to take him up on that.
Barney stopped her with a hand on her knee. He set the pillow aside. "I get why you couldn't have Fluffernutter here."
Her pulse flutters. Couldn't have, not didn't want. "I don't hate rabbits."
His arm settles about her shoulder. "It's not just rabbits. It's rabbits from your dad."
"Yeah. I tried. I really tried." Some memories, she couldn't shake, not even for him.
He gathers her closer. She likes his new cologne, all woodsy and warm. "I know," is all he says, for the longest time, and they sit there, quiet, close. Maybe too quiet.
She rubs the tip of his tie, slub silk in shades of bluish gray, between thumb and forefinger. "I think I want to talk about the d-word now."
Barney's hand tenses on her leg. "Uh, isn't divorce a little drastic?"
She delivers a mock punch to his shoulder. "Not divorce. Dog." There. She's said it. Dog. D-o-g. Dog. Puppy. Pooch. Mutt. Mongrel. Canine. Canis Familiaris. "I know this is probably the worst time in the world to talk about getting a dog, and I'm selfish, even bringing it up, when I made you give your rabbit to James and Tom, but-" She didn't get a chance to answer. Barney's mouth covered hers, his kiss silencing anything else she might have said. Only one kiss, strong, sure, full of love, promise and life, over so quickly that she might have imagined it, except for the trace of her lipstick on Barney's lower lip. "I forgot how nice it was to have something small and furry go nuts when I come home."
"Robin." He pauses after her name, his about to explain the obvious expresion at odds with that smudge of red on his mouth. "I love Fluffernutter. I love rabbits. I love you more. That's how this marriage thing works. You're always going to be my number one. I would love to have dogs with you. Say the word, and I will find us a dog guy."
"Shelter." She smooths his tie. White hairs sprinkle the rough texture of the silk, too. She doesn't brush them away. Maybe they could drop by on the weekend, see how Fluffernutter likes his new home. "When we're both ready, we'll look at shelters."
He slips his arm about her shoulder and draws her close. "Shelter it is, then."
"Some of those shelters," she says into the woodsy-scented Egyptian cotton of his starched collar, "might have rabbits, too."
"Is that going to be a problem?" He has a little lipstick on the round of his chin, too.
She wipes the red away with the pad of her thumb. "I think it'll be okay."