robin_sparkles | (no subject)

(no subject)

Robin definitely knew that she could get up and go, but the truth was that she wasn't exactly sure her limbs were going to work properly just yet. She collapsed back against the sheets and the conveniently placed Lewis Nixon-shaped man that was lying there with her, trying not to let herself get too down or too thoughtful or too...well, too anything. She let out a quiet sound of content that somehow managed to get distraught too.

Yeah, the whole not-thinking thing wasn't working for her.

"Lewis?" she spoke up finally, staring at the wall. "You ever think about how maybe sometimes you kind of aren't the kind of person you think you are?" Because yeah, she was having that in spades. She really did think she was going to be okay with this, but now she was starting to get worried about attachments and feelings and maybe she was more Ted Mosby than she really thought.

And she couldn't pine like Ted could.

But still, it really wasn't escaping her notice that she only slept with three men anymore and she managed to get pretty much zero of them in a traditional sense. Barney was trying, god help him, he was, but it still wasn't like having a boyfriend so much as a ... well, a bro.

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Truth told, Lew can really do without the post-coital therapy sessions. Pushing Robin out of the bed is the last thing he wants just now, however, so he allows her to settle all that bare, sweaty skin against his own, and attempts to afford her a degree of focus when he'd much rather nod off.

"How do you mean?" he asks, because this clearly isn't about him at all and his answer is likely irrelevant.

Robin kept her head somewhat on his chest, but inevitably slid off, draping her leg over his hips instead for a sense of closeness. "I don't know," she admitted with a quiet scoff. "I just kind of don't have a clue whether or not this whole...thing is working for me. It's either super-casual or exclusive and this in-between." She shook her head.

"Yeah, it kind of sucks."

He's not going to say 'I told you so,' even though he'd really, really like to. Lew's never been the most chaste person on the planet, but he's never agreed with this... whatever it is that Robin's doing. Of course, he effectively lost his ability to argue it by continuing to sleep with her anytime she sees fit.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Robin," he sighs, but he's still got an arm curled around her, is still idly stroking the smooth skin of her hip. "I made it pretty fucking clear how I feel about it. You said you'd be happy like this, and I took your word for it. But you're not happy."

She let out a heavy sigh because it wasn't like she wanted to suddenly get all chummy and monogamy-long-term happy. She still liked having her doors to exit in the event of a quick and necessary bolt. "You know what I miss? And no, this isn't a hint," she indicated firmly. "I kind of miss the dating part. Like, the staying in and just hanging out and the in-jokes and nice dinners and the whole 'two people against the world' thing. Sex is amazing," she praised. "God, I don't know. Why'd I ever say yes to him?"

"Because I wasn't available," Lew deadpans as he reaches impassively past Robin to retrieve his pack of cigarettes from the night table. He hadn't intended to be the post-coital cliche, but if they're going to have this discussion, he needs a cigarette.

"Oh yeah, baby," Robin deadpanned right back, eyes as smoldering as she could get them, sarcasm amped to ten. "I couldn't even live without you," she joked evenly, shifting to adjust one hand behind her head and to stare up at the ceiling. "I don't know. It just sucks," she said bluntly. "I mean, wouldn't you think if a guy's in love with you, he'd be more accommodating to tradition? Isn't that the idea?"

Lew takes a long drag to keep his jaw from clenching. "You're the most confusing woman I've ever met, you know that?" he says, and rubs at the bridge of his nose with his thumb. "And that's really saying something. I don't even know why you're asking me my obviously biased opinion when you know you're going to ignore what I say regardless."

"I'm kind of broken. It comes on the packaging, but I left it back in New York with my actual life," Robin admitted as she rolled over onto her stomach and braced herself with her forearms while peering at him, sex-tousled hair falling over her shoulders. "You think I should dump him, I'm guessing," she estimated with a critical look. "And normally, I would. But it's like a fungus. And it's like one you think is good for you."

And now she was back to the place where she was making no sense again. "All I know is that you're starting to cloud my head," she admitted, rolling back to her back, pulling the sheets up to her chest and staring decisively at the ceiling so she didn't have to look at him.

The worst part of this is not that Lew's being played, it's that he's allowing it without question or even much in the way of hesitation. He's not sure she even realizes she's doing it, but the fact remains, he's getting the brutally short end of the stick, here.

"I didn't say that," he calmly points out, cigarette poised between careful fingers well away from Robin. "You want someone to give you an easy answer, and it's just not that cut and dry. I will say this, though. I think that broken excuse is bullshit, and I wish you'd stop playing these games. I have no idea what you're even talking about, I'm clouding your head. You either want this to be impersonal or you don't. Make a decision."

Robin stayed silent for a long moment. She'd started out wanting this to be good and impersonal, but the truth was, it'd gotten scarily not somewhere along the way. "I should go," she admitted and sat up, reaching for the strewn clothes around the room. "I should just...I should go," she reiterated, biting back any more words that could better explain her position in all of this. "I'm kind of being a slut and a bitch at once," she marvelled, "And you deserve better."

"So you're going to run away," Lew surmises, unmoving from his place on the bed. "Really, that's stellar, Robin. Good to see you're really working to resolve these issues. Is this about pushing me away?" He sits up on the mattress, sheet pooling against his lap. "That's what you did to Dick, right? You weren't good enough for him, so you go find yourself a guy who'll make you feel like shit."

She yanked on her shirt at about the same time as finding her underwear and steadfastly ignored looking at him as she dug around for the jeans she'd been wearing. "I don't want to talk about Dick right now," she said very simply, and that was about all she was willing to say. After all, he didn't belong in the spider's web mess she'd made for herself.

She paused, running both hands through the chaos of her hair and kept her palms on her forehead while staring at him. "You're doing a pretty good job of making me feel like shit right now, Nixon," she informed him. "So if it was about that, I'd still be in bed with you."

"We're on a last name basis now?" he asks, then purses his cigarette between his lips, leans forward to catch Robin's hands and tugs her back over to the bed. "Don't do this, come on. I'm sorry if I made you feel like shit, but at least we're even now. I'm trying to do this thing your way, but you're confusing the hell out of me."

He sets the cigarette aside and lets his hands fall to rest on her hips before turning imploring brown eyes up to her face, his hair a mess. "Come on, don't fuck and run. You're better than that."

Robin straggled back to the bed, sighing heavily as she kneeled one knee against the fabric and looked down at him, leaning to the side to grasp the cigarette and take a quick drag (and oh yeah, she definitely was never living with Ted if he wasn't ever going to let her keep smoking) before putting it back and crawling back atop him. "I don't know how to do this thing without being confusing," she admitted to him. "But I do like doing it. Especially with you."

That's no closer to an answer, but Lew will take it as a small victory, even if it's far from winning the war. He pushes the hair from Robin's face with both hands and presses a kiss first to her chin and then her mouth.

"You drive me crazy, you know that?" he murmurs when he draws away again. "Do you give anybody else this much shit, or am I just special?"

"I'm infuriating," she admitted with a half-there smile, leaning into the kiss before curling up on one side of the bed in her clothes. "I also believe the word 'unbelievable' has been used, and not in the best of ways. I invented a fake marriage once to get people off my case about the whole popstar thing," she confessed. "My fake husband moved to Hong Kong for business."

"Just as long as you're equal opportunity infuriating," Lew allows, and tugs her closer, wishing she'd not gotten in such a huff that she'd gotten dressed again. "And you're going to have to explain to me what a pop star is, because I still don't know." Something to do with malls, apparently, whatever that meant.

Robin let out an embarrassed groan of a laugh as she looked up at him. "It means I was a singer. And I was kind of popular? I had a top forty song and I had fans and I went on tour and made music videos and got played on the radio." Just because of that stupid modelling job it had started as. Stupid, stupid modelling.

"So I followed it up with a very serious ballad and it flopped and my career as a musician was over," she confessed, hand on his chest and sketching wide circles there with her fingers.

Lew doesn't know what a music video is, or even the top forty, but he gets the gist well enough.

"And now you're here, where that sort of thing means absolutely nothing," he pointed out.

"Oh god help me, I am so glad they don't," Robin assured him with a nervous scoff. "It was my biggest darkest worst secret ever, ever, ever," she insisted, still a bit high-strung. "The fact that it's circulating out there at home thanks to...certain people," she amended instead of saying 'Barney', "is bad enough."

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