"I'm fine," Barney lies, batting Lily's hands away. "I'm awesome." It certainly would be great to be awesome. To float on top of everything, sure in the knowledge of his superiority, flying, soaring, swooping, totally focussed on the next conquest, the next big corporate deal, the next rare bottle of scotch.

It would be great to be awesome but it's something he strives for, something out there just beyond his reach - like if he tells himself enough times that he's happy, he will be happy.

But he knows this feeling - this feeling of anger and falling and failure. He's comfortable with this feeling, this nemesis of awesome. Right now, this feeling is like a second skin, a pair of comfortable shoes, a warm plate of pasta. This feeling is familiar and sure and certain.

Anger fuels him, falling drives him on and failure gives him focus. He's a dark pinpoint of black light, sweeping over everything. He can imagine grass going brown and dying beneath his feet. He can imagine dogs barking as he passes. A dark, winged thing unfurls inside of him.

"I'm awesome," he tells Lily, and he steels himself not to turn around when she enters the bar. Instead, he calmly gets to his feet and finds the nearest, sluttiest bimbo he can and tells her that he's a detective hunting a serial killer who prays on attractive women in bars (one of his best plays yet) and he offers to walk the girl back to her place.

He wonders vaguely why she doesn't think he might be the serial killer. Why none of them do.

Still, she's built. Her breasts are extraordinary.

Robin's loss is his gain.

He takes the bimbo home and bangs her, just the once, up against her bedroom door. His fingers itch and he fantasises what it would be like to pretend to strangle her, see the fear in her eyes. Instead, he leaves while she goes to make coffee.

He knows this feeling. He's comfortable with this feeling. Leaving the girl isn't enough. He wants to hurt someone. He wants to hurt a string of someones. He wants tears.

He needs to hurt someone. He needs to hurt a string of someones. He needs to externalise his pain.

"I'm awesome," he tells Lily, when he returns to the bar. The others are pretty drunk, the pressure of keeping the group together is taking its toll. Robin's the farthest gone of the lot - she's sitting at a table with two exes. Must be weird for her.

At last call, Barney's at the bar and he tells a woman that he's a tattoo artist and the colors of her tramp stamp are some of the more perfectly jewel-like that he's ever seen. Of course he's doesn't call it a tramp stamp so she's charmed (naturally) and invites him back for coffee.

He nails her before the coffee pot's even boiled.

But it's frustrating because she doesn't shatter when he tells her he's leaving, doesn't break into a thousand pieces. He needs to see her pain, needs to hurt her.

It's not like he didn't try to find the other path, boarding that monogamy plane with Robin and riding it until it crashed and burned. He knows that to really hurt someone, you have to spend time and energy on them, get them invested. You need time.

He just doesn't have the energy.

His fingers flex.

"I lied," he says calmly. "I'm not a tattoo artist." He falls. He's angry. He's a failture. A liar who finally tells the truth.

The girl (he doesn't get her name. Before, he always got their names) looks up and shrugs. She didn't think he was. She just thought he was cute.

"Did you know that in court during his trial, Ted Bundy had groupies," Barney says. "They used to swoon when he turned around and smiled at them. In court. At his trial."

She asks him who Ted Bundy is and he offers to show her.

*--*--*

He has to hurt someone, a string of someones, has to see their pain. His fist connects with her face and she drops like a sack of potatoes. He hauls her onto the bed and there are flashes when he sees is her, all pale bare skin, long limbs and plastic surgery. Her boobs point towards the ceiling long after he's stripped her of her bra and ties her wrists to the bedpost.

He's vaguely aware of some kind of scarlet-splattered, silvery orgasm, of some kind of lacerated ecstasy, of a gurgle of expiration.
The blood stains are a problem his dry cleaner can deal with. Maybe. Maybe the suit is ruined.

He's vaguely aware of some kind of screaming, desperate pleasure, of agonised enjoyment.

He has to hurt someone, a string of someones.

Until somebody stops him.