to burn in your fire

90's music flows out from speakers at the edges of the room, scotch flows down his throat with bitter feeling, and the chatter from people with everything sorted out in their lives is bound to drive him insane.

Ballet flats tapping up next to him are what break him out of his spellbind; Robin slumps in next to him, her face void of it's usual illumination.

All events of the previous week are swept away; her eyes show no hints of the evening of things that happened between them, no memories of the ways he held her or even the fact that he knows she's not as strong as she'd have the rest of them believe.

He attempts, and fails at, "Hey."

"Hey, Barney." She says. She blows at her fringe. She shuffles in her seat. "How's the talent?" her eyes turn to the crowd, and she pulls a face, "Not quite up to standard, is it?"

"Mm," he concedes, taking small sips from his scotch, "Maybe now that you're here, but otherwise, no."

She cracks a grin that rings hollow in her cheeks. "Need a wingwoman?" she says, and offers him a sly wink.

"Not tonight, Scherbatsky," he says, and sighs, "Not tonight."

Her eyebrows arch into her hairline, or almost. "Are you kidding?" she says, blue eyes going big, "What happened? Who died? Did you slip some pills before I came in?"

"I don't know," he says, shrugging, "I'm just not feeling up to it."

She laughs and reaches for his hand. "You getting on in the years, Stinson?"

He scoffs, but doesn't let himself let go of her hand. "Please, Scherbatsky. Like I'd ever. As if."

"Feeling a tad sensitive, are we?" she says, patting over his knuckles, "Don't worry. It happens to the best of us."

"And what do you mean by that, Scherbatsky?"

She leans back, and shrugs. "Maybe you're getting too old for this game."

"I'm twenty-five, Robin. I am doing no such thing."

She eyes him. "Don't you try and fool me, Stinson." She says, and her voice drops to a low, almost secretive whisper, "You're twenty-eight and we both know it."

"Damn you, Robin Scherbatsky."

She blows him a kiss. "I try, I try."

He pouts. "Maybe I'm twenty-five at heart, Robin. Ever think of that?"

She winks at him; licks her lips. "We're both twenty-five at heart, Barney."

He grins. "God, you're hot."

This is the kind of thing he loves; the things they can get away with when the watchful eyes of the elders aren't present.

The way she smiles at him, the way she brightens, the way she tilts her head and laughs in the way only he can make her laugh, the way colours seem more vivid and beauty is more apparent and that laugh is the most musical thing he's ever heard in his life.

The light teasing, the hints beneath her voice, the games they can play when Ted isn't around.

She swivels away from him, casting a discerning eye on the rest of the bar-goers. "Let's see..." she says, rolling her tongue over her teeth, eyes snapping every which way.

She leans back, fixing her eyes directly in the middle of the table, and whispers over at him, "Prize cutlet at eleven o' clock."

He almost doesn't look, he's not sure he wants to. He flicks a fleeting glance over at where she's looking. He shrugs, "Not my type."

"Barney," she whines, "You've got to give me something here. She's totally your type! Big cans, smoking body—if I do say so myself..."

He takes another quick look at the cutlet in question. "She's not that hot."

"She's more boob than face, for crying out loud!"

"I don't know. I told you," he says, and sips from his drink, "I'm just not feeling it tonight, okay?"

"Barney..." her voice drops, and she nudges the toe of her boot against his shin. "Barney, what's wrong?"

"So just because I don't feel like fucking some random chick something must be wrong?"

She flinches away from him. "I don't—" she stops, and shakes her head. "Sorry. I just thought..." she waves her hands around, gesturing to nothing in particular, "I mean, it's you. You're Barney. You're always looking to play another play."

He sighs. He hadn't meant meant to snap, but he pushes that feeling away. "Not tonight, Scherbatsky."

Her face flashes with something; something torn down, hurt, and something stirs in him from somewhere dark, somewhere deep down inside him, somewhere that shouldn't be there and somewhere he's scared of. She whispers, "I... don't know what I said."

He'd never meant to hurt her.

"Scherbatsky, I'm sorry."

She waves a hand at him, voice turning light, "Nah, don't worry about it. It's fine. You're not feeling it, I get it." She stops. She smiles a smile that breaks after maybe half a second. "I get it."

"Robin..."

"No, seriously. I'm fine. I get it."

She clasps her fingers on the table. Lights flicker above their heads; the air has turned heavy, lined with the things that should never be said.

"Robin," he pries her fingers apart; brushes over them, one by one. "I guess I'm just sick of all the cheap hookups."

Her fingers still against his. Her eyes drift, slow, taking their time. "Really?"

He smiles, softly. "Really."

"Are you smooth talking me, or..." she murmurs, and turns his hand over, tracing swirling circles into his palm.

"I would never smooth talk you, Scherbatsky. I wouldn't dare."

She laughs, quickly. "Yeah," she murmurs, "Yeah."

His voice drops, "Don't tell Lily, though. She'll be on at me for God knows how long. For the rest of my life, probably."

"I won't," she says, shaking her head, smiling, "I would never."

In a rush he realises how close they are to each other; both leaning across the table, he's drowning in her scent and the perfume she doesn't bother to wear because it's just him and her and no one else, no one to dress up for.

He leans back.

She eyes him. "So you're passing up on the talent tonight, huh?"

Her smiles turns him blurry, a drunk whispering man wishing for things long past.

"Pick me out a nice gazelle, Scherbatsky."

She grins. "There's my sleazy Stinson." She says, and gets up. She turns back to him; winks. "Only the best for you, Barney. Only the best."

To her credit, she does have good taste. She picks him out a brassy blonde with a headful of dizzy dreams who's all too happy to believe he really can get her a one way ticket to stardom.

He kicks her out in the morning and doesn't even bother to learn her name; he's too busy trying not to focus on the one that already haunts him.

But it's not like he's not used to it by now.

x

In the next three days, she only comes into the bar once.

She thumps down next to him, fists clenched by her sides. She reaches over and steals his half full tumbler of scotch away from him; polishes it off in one swig.

"Scherbatsky," he says, "Something the matter?"

"Oh, you know how it is," her tongue slices around her words, her syllables dripping with something hollow and bitter, "Life's a goddamn fairytale."

"Scherbatsky..."

"What, Barney?" she says, scowling, teeth flashing, "I don't understand what you're looking for."

"I'm not looking for anything. Why are you so pissed at me?"

She sighs; a frustrated, snapping thing. "I'm not pissed at you," she says, and sighs, rolling a finger up and down the bridge of her nose. "I'm not pissed at you."

"Well, good," he says, slowly. "Who are you pissed at, then?"

"Nobody."

"Really? You sound pissed."

"I'm not pissed."

"Well you sound pissed."

She slides his empty glass back to him. "I'm not pissed."

"Robin, are you drunk?"

She eyes him. "Yes," she stops, and sighs. "Well, that's the plan, anyway."

He laughs.

She stares at him, her eyes flash with something, then quickly turn dull again. "Please," she says, quietly, "Please don't tell Ted."

Her pale hand fidgets on the table.

"Of course not."

She stills, for a second.

Her eyes shift to his; unsteady, shaky. "You got a light?"

He nods. "Sure," he presses his lighter into her hands, "Let's go outside."

"Can't have Carl kicking us out again, right?"

She's smiling.

He smiles back. "Right."

They move outside; a cold wind brushes over them, and he shrugs his jacket off and wraps it around her shoulders.

She takes a drag from her cigarette, her eyes shining in the street light. "I'm Canadian, remember?" she says, arching an eyebrow. "But thanks."

Silence extends, until she shifts in her spot, taps ash into the street, and sighs, "Sometimes I wish I never met Ted."

He turns, staring her down. "Robin."

She blinks. "Does that sound really bad of me? Sorry. God, that does sound bad, doesn't it?"

"Is everything okay between you two?"

She doesn't beat around it. "No."

He takes a step closer, his teeth rattling against the cold. He takes the cigarette out of her hands, just for something to hold onto. He takes two short puffs; blows them out into the night. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"He's studying too much," she says, with a shrug, like it's no big deal. When he knows it makes all the difference in the world. "He says it like he doesn't think I know he's just using it as an excuse to get away from me."

He looks over at her, breathing in smoke like a lifeline, using it in the spaces between them so he won't have the word capacity to screw this up. "It can't be that bad."

"Oh can't it?" she parrots back, almost mocking him. "I know you're not stupid, Barney. No, I'll pay you the compliment of thinking you're not. It's not like there's not enough to see." She says, and motions for him to hand the cigarette back.

She blows smoke rings at him. "I'm supposed to love him, but I'm not sure."

"Scherbatsky..."

"Don't you Scherbatsky me, Barney." She says, her warm voice starting to blend in with the cold of the nighttime, "There's no point in being a little bitch and pretending it's not there."

It doesn't feel like something they're getting away with now.

He's supposed to contradict her, he's supposed to defend his best bro, he's supposed to keep her at arms length and he's supposed to be the saint, not the sinner.

He steps closer. "I didn't know things were that bad."

"It doesn't matter now, I guess," she says, and sighs, carding a hand through her hair. "It doesn't matter whether you saw it or not. It's there. It's always there, it doesn't leave me alone, and I'm sick of it."

Something's rising in her voice; agitation, outrage, blending in with all those things he's never supposed to hear.

"I'm sick of being perfect," she says, scowling into the dirt at the bottom of her boots, "I'm sick of being his perfect little Robin in his perfect little life with the perfect amount of love and tolerance who's there for whatever he needs and thinks he can do no wrong." She stops.

"I'm sick of being her."

She throws the cigarette into the dirt and stamps the life out of it.

She's not looking at him anymore, she's staring into the dying embers.

She stares over at him, the blue of her eyes the only source of illumination in a world otherwise coloured in the dark. "Hey, Barney?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I know something stupid we could do."

She moves closer in one fluid motion, she pulls down on his tie, a hand on his neck, and she's kissing him.