(no subject)

[robin_sparkles]

Robin knew that what they were doing probably was so far from healthy that it was insane, but she kind of couldn't find it in her to care. Barney was at the strip club and so she could either sit at home with the dogs and let her imagination run wild, or she could do something about it. Skinny hadn't been anywhere she'd looked, so she went down a familiar path, right to the Officer's Club instead.

And hell, she didn't even know who she was hoping would answer the door. No, that was a lie. She knew exactly who she wanted, but if Winters pulled it open, maybe she would have been shamed into turning around and going home.

But Robin was so not easily shamed. So she was all over knocking firmly on the main door, praying quietly under her breath with a constant, "Please be Lewis, please, please, please."

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[vat-69.livejournal.com]

When Lew opens the door, the mild curiosity on his expression drops immediately into an almost blase recognition -- Not simply of who it is, but why she's there -- and he steps back, sweeps an arm inside and waits for Robin to pass by before closing the door behind her.

"Don't worry, he's off somewhere being a Boy Scout," he finally says, brows arching as he slouches against the front door.

It sounds bad, he knows, but it's not like that. Dick's his best friend, the love of his fucking life as far as Lew knows, but sometimes that perfection really rankles, sends all his own faults into sharp relief.

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

Robin does pass him and enter the familiar home, but it didn't take her long to clap her hands together and rub them on the thighs of her denims, trying to shake off nerves. "There someplace more private we can go to talk so that he doesn't come back from being perfect?" she asked, staying cool and calm and collected about this.

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

There are two options for that, and Lew takes a moment to answer, debating between bed or booze. Ultimately, booze wins out, if only because it doesn't share a door with Dick.

"Yeah," with a nod as he pushes himself off the door, and motions Robin to follow him downstairs. "Close the door," he adds over his shoulder as he flips on the lights in the stairwell and sets about disarming the cellar alarm.

"You want a drink first?" he asks as the gate swings open with a clang.

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

Robin nodded as she followed, closing the door securely behind her. "I mean, unless you have plans?" Robin said, following slowly and watching the booze that was surrounding them. "This place always gives me such happy feelings," she teased. "It's like sex without the sex part."

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

Lew snorts in amusement as he uncorks one of the bottles of Vat that appeared last month and tips some into one of the glasses he's managed to squirrel away. "The sex part could be arranged," he replies with a smirk as he passes the glass Robin's way. "Might be uncomfortable, though."

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

Robin was happy to take the glass, grinning warmly as she wandered closer to him. "What, the sex? It wasn't so uncomfortable last time, from what I recall," she said smoothly, "I mean, not so much that we shouldn't ever do it again, right?"

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

She's working him, and Lew can't decide whether he wants to be annoyed by that or not. It's his own fault that he didn't date her properly before, that it didn't even occur to him; this gorgeous, phenomenal woman right in front of him and in his bed, and his brain occupied with stubborn blondes instead.

It was stupid. Monumentally stupid. But he doesn't know what she's playing at, now.

"You looking to get laid, that it?" he asks, figuring pretense might as well go out the window when he's considering fucking the girl his best friend was just dating a couple of months ago. "And I'm a sure thing?"

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

"I'm looking for regular sex," she said bluntly, considering that if they were going to get right down to it, they ought to just say it all. "I'm with someone now, but it's not committed, not at all. And you can say no," she assured. "You're not a sure thing, but I figured I had to give it a shot while he's at the strip club being decidedly un-perfect."

"So uh," she managed, knocking back most of her glass at once, "If you're into the whole sex thing, I was hoping we could do it."

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

"The whole sex thing," Lew mouths back at her in astonishment, and he has to admit that while he appreciates her candor, it's hard to not be insulted by that. Pride stinging with the reminder that he's apparently not good enough for anyone to actually date, he turns to pour himself a glass.

"So, what? Your boyfriend isn't fucking you enough?" he asks, more crude than he'd normally be even with Robin, but the whole thing feels crass and gauche and clashes with that fundamental lofty part of himself that can't tolerate harsh edges and reality.

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

Robin didn't exactly flinch and she hardly was about to go weep. She just let him get that out. "My boyfriend fucks me good, hard, and as often as I want," she contested. "But when he's off trying to get laid by strippers, I'd rather not be sitting at home like the pathetic girlfriend. If you don't want to do it, I'll find someone else. I'm pretty sure your enlisted boys would be happy to hit this."

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

Lew scoffs at first, glass poised before his lips, and then it strikes him how sad that is. He lowers his drink again and levels Robin with a calm, steady gaze.

"Why?" he asks her, because he's genuinely confused on that count. "I'm not buying that you're just so bored you have to fuck other people."

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

"Why, what? Why do I want to take advantage of my open relationship? Why do I want to go back to the thing we had when I didn't exactly get to pursue anything else of it?" Robin offered, watching him curiously. "Or are we actually about to get into the part where I kept waiting for you to make a move."

She set the glass down on the floor beside her, shaking her head. "Look, if you're just gonna be a little girly bitch about this, I'm going home. I just thought maybe, maybe you and I could have some fun."

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

That literally rocks him back half a step, and he drops the glass on the table untouched. "You were dating my BEST FRIEND!" he exclaims with a wide, aggravated motion of one arm. "How the FUCK was I supposed to make a move?! You think I didn't want to?! You think a DAY goes by that I don't regret letting you convince me keeping this casual was OKAY?! And now you're with this... idiot who obviously doesn't know what he's got, and I'm supposed to be okay with being your BOREDOM FUCK? I know I screwed up, I know I had a chance and blew it, but have a little compassion, for crissakes!"

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

Robin was furious now, as close as she got to fighting words and she wanted a smoke and a gun and a drink, but all she had was her words. "I mean before that!" she accused, louder than before. "Before that when I didn't even get a date so much as we got to screw the once and then Barney turned up hit by a bus and I'm so sorry if I'm with the idiot, but I can't give you a kid or a wedding band and a happy future, so the only thing you'll ever get of me is sex because I'm not like normal girls who have their fairytale ending!"

She inhaled sharply, glaring heavily at him. "You're not my boredom fuck, you're not supposed to be anything, but I know you're a friend and I thought that...I just thought..." She squeezed her eyes shut, not even sure she wanted to say it aloud. "Look, he's going to break my heart! Okay? Are you happy?"

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

"No," Lew replies, and sucks in one slow, wavering breath. "Because you're breaking mine."

He turns back to the glass, takes one long gulp and then another, not looking at her, this situation the most frustrating, unbelievable thing he can imagine. That two people can feel this way about each other and let so much bullshit get in the way of it is incomprehensible and yet far too familiar. He's never understood why loving someone can't just be simple.

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

"You don't want me," she said, sure of that, if nothing else. "Don't turn me into the vessel that's going to carry everything. I've had this conversation before and I'll have it again. I see that look in your eyes and I know that look, that 'let's put our kids in soccer' one some men have and I swear to god, I swear to you, I can't do it again, I can't..."

But she can do certain things that involve leaning up against him and kissing him good and long and hard while Barney is at the strip club looking down other women's tops and thinking of having sex with other women.

She eased back, looking him right in the eye. "I'm not the one who's breaking your heart," she said simply. "I'm just the most convenient person to pin that on."

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

"It make you feel better to tell yourself that?" he asks, caught between wanting to carry her upstairs or just giving into the unbearable weariness of how he feels all of the time these days. He'd like to take what's left of his case of Vat, commandeer Webster's boat and not come back for a month.

He slips a hand to the back of her neck, beneath the weight of her hair, and tugs her closer, leans in to nuzzle against her temple. How could he have missed this? How could it have slipped up on him without him realizing before now?

Leaning back again, he met Robin's gaze. "I'll make a deal with you."

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

Her eyes fell closed slightly at the touch to her skin and she wondered how much trouble she was going to be in, if Barney found out about this. "What kind of deal are we talking about?" she asked, firmly, ready to keep her feet on the ground and to be sure and calm about all of this.

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

He slips his hand forward, watches as he rubs the pad of his thumb over the curve of her her cheek. "I'm not asking you to stop whatever it is you're doing," he starts, and then meets her eyes again. "But let me do this right. I made a mistake once, and I can't let myself do it again. Let me take you out, let me do this right. And if you decide Captain Stripper is the better choice and I'm just a huge fuck up, fine. But let me at least try."

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

Robin felt a sudden grip of uncertainty. "That breaks all our rules," Robin said, worriedly. "I'm not supposed to date other men. He doesn't care if I sleep around, but he doesn't want other men dating me." She didn't want to remind him about the whole 'he loves her' thing because Robin didn't know if she was able to deal with that, just yet.

"And what?" she lightly asked. "If it does work, you propose? Lew, come on," she begged. "I am not a marriage-and-babies girl. I'm...I'm..." She gave a snort of a laugh, figuring Barney's words were best. "I'm a gun-toting, cigar-smoking, Scotch-drinking New Yorker at heart with a past you don't even know about!"

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

"Why have you decided that I'm chomping at the bit to get married?" Lew asks, letting his hand fall away. "I just got out of a shitty marriage to a woman who only wanted to be with me because of my family. I'm not looking at women and thinking about china patterns, here. The last girl I dated probably would have beaten me up for proposing. And as for your past, isn't that the point of dating someone?" He's not going to get into breaking rules, because they're not his and he really could give a shit. "You're the one throwing it in my face that I didn't ask you out in the beginning. Well, here I am, late but doing it. Go out with me, Robin. I promise I am not scoping out your uterus in the hopes that you'll carry my seed."

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

She twisted her lips and shook her head, leaning in to kiss him a little harder than before. "I can't break my rules with him," she apologized, in the midst of kissing him again and again, not wanting to do that to him, not when she was still trying to figure out where she stood on the whole issue. "And I'm sorry," she apologized, strained. "If you don't want kids and marriage, it's just...you know, I figure that's what you 40's boys want. Happy family," she weakly joked, easing away.

"But I can't date you," she admitted, feeling about as sick to her stomach as she ever did. "And I don't want to break your heart. I don't want to break anyone's heart."

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

"Well, it's too fucking late for that," and about par for the course, too, and he's so tired of this, so tired of everything.

"Take the bottle and go fuck someone else," he tells her with a motion to the Vat before moving toward the door, empty and bitter, each heavy footstep on the stairs reminding him of some other way he's completely fucked up. With Kathy, with Kara, with Sharon and Robin. With the war, with his family, with that little girl he's never going to meet.

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

Robin managed to not even bother to say another word, even if she was raring for something else and she sighs heavily and just takes the bottle, long enough to plant it on the table. "I don't want your send-off booze," she said, words sharp. "And I am sorry." It didn't take her much longer to start vaulting the stairs two by two, figuring she owed him...well, something.

She paused at the top stair, staring down at him. "My secret? The one I lied about for a decade? I was a teenage pop starlet. In Canada. I sang about malls and wore bedazzled jackets and had a blonde perm," she said, "And it was the most embarrassing thing of my life and now you know."

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

Their generation gap becomes even more apparent with this baffling display, as Lew has no idea what a mall is, or what bedazzling is, or why either would be considered bad. He gets what she's doing, and some part of him appreciates the fact that she can't let him just walk away, but if that's her biggest secret, he can't fathom why it's a big deal to tell him.

He pauses, staring up at her with a steady gaze. "I fucked men in college. Can I get by, please?"

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, well," Robin scoffed, cocking a brow up, "I lost my virginity to a gay man," she countered, opening the door and gesturing out. "I'll let myself out," she promised him, hating that she was apparently going to bed feeling worse than before.

At least she still had the dogs.

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

He should do exactly what she's motioning for him to do, which is walk right on past, upstairs and out, go anyplace else, think about anything else. One foot in front of the other, not that difficult a task to accomplish in light of everything that's just happened. And yet, as soon as he starts to brush past her, he turns instead, pins her body against the stairwell wall with his own, and covers her mouth in a nearly brutal kiss.

So much for solidarity.

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

Robin let out a muffled sound of surprise, arms pinned to the wall and her back pressed hard against it, wondering exactly what part of their conversation had indicated that this was going to happen and so what if she kissed back. It was a hot man kissing her.

She wasn't an idiot.

She let out a muffled moan against his lips, one hand gripping hard at his hair and wondering what was coming next.

[vat-69.livejournal.com]

Even Lewis Nixon, Yale-educated, well-read, theoretically sensitive man, is occasionally prone to fits of testosterone-driven action. Which is precisely why he slips his hands down to Robin's ass, gets a good grip and lifts her. Without stopping to question himself or their currently-skewed situation, he carries her upstairs and into his room, kicking the door closed behind him.

[robin-sparkles.livejournal.com]

Robin knew that men were prone to surprising things, but this one was right up her alley and all the while he kept carrying her, she was definitely in the mood for kissing him as much as she could, lips and neck and cheek and forehead and hair, all of it.

Maybe it was unhealthy, but so what? What part of her life over the last while was healthy?