[For Nixon]

[robin_sparkles]

She had a full bottle of wine in her hands and she had to get away from Barney and not see Winters and right now she needed Lily and Ted and Marshall and oh god, why were they all gone? So in the lack of best friends (who weren't Barney! Lily's chipper voice piped up), Robin made a beeline for Winters' best friend.

"Lewis, Lew," Robin pleaded when she caught up to him, still clasping the wine to her chest like it was a baby puppy. "Help me."

Comments

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

As a general rule, people don't come to Lew for help these days unless they need something relatively superficial. A bottle of booze, a reliable contact, that sort of thing. Dick's who you go to when you really need help, and he's a little surprised to find Robin, of all people, frantically pleading with him for assistance. His gaze falls to the bottle of wine and then lifts to Robin's face again.

"You sound pretty desperate," he points out, and takes a sip from his glass.

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

Robin didn't even care that she was living it up hobo-style with the guzzling from the bottle because it was that big of a deal. She grabbed hold of his upper arm and dragged him slightly away from the revelry, keeping a hold of herself. "Yeah, well, have your life turned upside down and then tell me how desperate you are."

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

Somehow, Lew doubts that it's anything quite so drastic as that, although his point of view is decidedly skewed after several glasses of whiskey. "So, your life has been turned upside down," he reiterates and takes another sip from his glass. "How can I help?" She's already got wine, and he can't fathom what else she would need him for.

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

"Right, so," Robin began with an emphatic gesture of her wine bottle, the neck of it sloshing all the way over and little droplets coming out. "I'm dating your best friend. And I'm still unconvinced that he's anything but Mr. Perfect, right?" She took a long drink, figuring droplets escaping was a sign that she needed to imbibe more. "Except, see, Barney just told me he loves me. And Barney is...well, Barney. And he loves me," she reasoned aloud, slurring her words. "Oh my god, I woke up in a soap opera, didn't I," she commented in horror.

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

Lew's getting a little sick of hearing about this Barney fucker, and he stares hard at Robin for a long, tense moment, watches her drink and the erratic way she's moving. That's it, right there, and he points at her with his free hand.

"Don't you hurt him, Robin," he warns, and it isn't harsh quite yet, but it's stern. "If you're in love with this other guy, don't string Dick along. Do not. Are you hearing me?"

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

She wanted to strangle something right there and then and the neck of the wine bottle was going to have to do and she darted in that extra step, glaring up at Nixon those last few inches. "I am not in love with Barney," she snapped at him. "He is my best friend and I care for him the way you do for your best friend, but I do not want to jumpstart a life with him. So don't...just don't," she begged. "Don't treat me like I want to break his heart."

She didn't even know which him she meant, anymore.

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

Robin's got no idea, absolutely no idea what she's just said, and Lew's sure that if he were a more impulsive man, a more stridently passionate man, he'd come right out and say it if only to have the pleasure of watching her sputter over it.

"It's not about wanting to, Robin," he says instead, in that calm, non-nonsense voice that makes it clear he's not interested in pandering to bullshit just to spare her feelings. "Most people don't want to. It just happens, and I'm telling you: Take some time to figure out where your head is at, and if you're uncertain about this Barney guy, if there's even a remote chance you feel the same way, you cut Dick loose. If you hurt him, not only will you get no sympathy from me ever again, but you'll have that on your conscience the rest of your life."

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

Robin was scrubbing a hand over her face, again and again and she seriously had no clue what to think about all this. "What is it about me," she had to wonder. "I mean, Barney is a good friend," she clarified. "And yes, admittedly, good in bed, but he's a womanizer and vaguely screwed up in the head. And this is the kind of guy who loves me," she said, shaking her head.

"I'll think about it, though," she promised, feeling just about gutted and worn down.

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

"I'll tell you exactly what it is about you," Lew says with an absent wave of the hand holding his glass, the amber liquid sloshing inside. "You're everything men say they wish women were like. Smart, independent, funny; you like to drink and smoke and tell jokes. You're like one of the guys. You don't mind having sex just for the sake of it, you don't nag or pressure, but you're still a girl and still beautiful. All that alone is enough to make any guy crazy for you, but add on top of it that you've made yourself totally unattainable, and it's no fucking wonder men fall for you."

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

It really was little moments like that when Robin was severely disappointed she'd never attempted a thing with him. If only because so many guys just never got that and were always trying to outman her. "Even the slightly sociopathic womanizing ones who are all about the chase, I guess," she said, staring at the wine bottle like it was her best friend in the whole wide world.