FIC: Reinvention (1/1) HIMYM
Title: Reinvention
Summary: Prompt: Robin Sparkles never quit her music career, but instead segued into an Alanis Mourissette-esque path. She and Barney meet up somehow.
Written for: 10_titles challenge and otempora42
Rating/Warnings: PG-15 for adult situations
Word Count: 721
Fandom/Pairing: HIMYM: Barney/Robin
Spoilers: AU, some time around season 1
He knows who she is. The chick behind the velvet rope, surrounded by hangers on and occasionally swigging from a bottle of Johnnie Walker; the chick who looks way too thin, way too haggard to be healthy... Oh yeah, Barney knows who she is.
He watches her, knowing he's just one of any number of ghouls witnessing the car-crash of her life, fascinated in seeing just how far she can fall on that Britney-path of excess.
Robin Sparkles, they called her, back in the nineties. Now she doesn't. Sparkle, that is. Now she's a rock star, known simply as "Robin", like having only one name allowed her to shed the baggage of her early career.
He smiles, bitterly. He supposes that pretty-much everyone has a youth they're embarrassed about. He certainly does.
After a while, when "Robin" fails to do anything interesting, like OD, or run around naked, Barney looks around for Ted, unable to locate him, unable to get cell phone reception in this dingy hell-hole of a dance club. He's just thinking of splitting when his elbow's jostled by someone sitting down beside him at the bar.
It's the rock star chick. She's such a cliché. She's even wearing shades, which would explain why she almost lands on top of him.
No apology of course. Hot chicks that are on MTV don't need to apologise to guys in suits. He sees the irritation pull at her lips.
Then the girl, the rich, spoiled, rock-chick, she takes off her shades and he sees her eyes.
Barney leans over and yells something in her ear.
*-*-*
Outside the club, in a alleyway glistening with dirty rain, Barney lights the cigarette of a famous singer.
He wonders if she actually sings, or if she lip-syncs.
"I saw an early video you did," he tells her, grinning. "The one about sandcastles. Looked like a tampon commercial."
She lets out a throaty chuckle and takes a deep drag on her cigarette. "Very true..." She shakes her head, self-deprecatingly.
"Nah, I liked it," he assures her, singing a couple of bars.
She shushes him and laughs again, this time a little more freely. "Shut up! You'll have the fanclub out here and trust me, you don't wanna mess with those psychos." She elaborates a little. Tells him about the security guards, the court orders, the Humvees with the blacked out windows.
Pimp my ride, it 'aint.
He can't even imagine what it must be like to be her.
She shivers and he offers her his jacket. Her arms are way too thin, her collarbones are showing. All in all, he thinks she was way more hot when she did that tampon-ad song.
She seems to have lost her sparkle.
"Hey, you wanna come back to my place?" He offers, not expecting an answer. He's surprised when she says yes.
*-*-*
Later, when she's getting dressed, searching for the thin scraps of leather and lace that she calls clothing, he finds himself daydreaming. Or nightdreaming, since it's about three a.m.
He finds himself wishing he could take her down to the bar, introduce her to Marshall and Lily, show her off to Ted. She seems lonely, for all that she's always surrounded by people. Her cell phone rings constantly but she makes no move to answer it.
Barney finds himself wondering if she needs some people in her life. He knows what it feels like to be alone in a crowd - to be the centre of attention but to still be achingly empty. He wonders how long she'll last in the world she's chosen before it chews her up.
When she's getting dressed, Barney makes no attempt at conversation. He guesses that Robin does this all the time - takes out her frustrations on a string of groupies, on a succession of empty one night stands. In a way, she's closer to him that he's comfortable with.
Except that he gets to go down to the bar the next day and just hang out in blissful anonymity with the people who choose to be with him when they could be anywhere else in this big city.
She, she gets to go back to a hotel room and her life of glitz and glamour.
His life is awesome. But he's pretty sure she's say the same thing.
Summary: Prompt: Robin Sparkles never quit her music career, but instead segued into an Alanis Mourissette-esque path. She and Barney meet up somehow.
Written for: 10_titles challenge and otempora42
Rating/Warnings: PG-15 for adult situations
Word Count: 721
Fandom/Pairing: HIMYM: Barney/Robin
Spoilers: AU, some time around season 1
He knows who she is. The chick behind the velvet rope, surrounded by hangers on and occasionally swigging from a bottle of Johnnie Walker; the chick who looks way too thin, way too haggard to be healthy... Oh yeah, Barney knows who she is.
He watches her, knowing he's just one of any number of ghouls witnessing the car-crash of her life, fascinated in seeing just how far she can fall on that Britney-path of excess.
Robin Sparkles, they called her, back in the nineties. Now she doesn't. Sparkle, that is. Now she's a rock star, known simply as "Robin", like having only one name allowed her to shed the baggage of her early career.
He smiles, bitterly. He supposes that pretty-much everyone has a youth they're embarrassed about. He certainly does.
After a while, when "Robin" fails to do anything interesting, like OD, or run around naked, Barney looks around for Ted, unable to locate him, unable to get cell phone reception in this dingy hell-hole of a dance club. He's just thinking of splitting when his elbow's jostled by someone sitting down beside him at the bar.
It's the rock star chick. She's such a cliché. She's even wearing shades, which would explain why she almost lands on top of him.
No apology of course. Hot chicks that are on MTV don't need to apologise to guys in suits. He sees the irritation pull at her lips.
Then the girl, the rich, spoiled, rock-chick, she takes off her shades and he sees her eyes.
Barney leans over and yells something in her ear.
*-*-*
Outside the club, in a alleyway glistening with dirty rain, Barney lights the cigarette of a famous singer.
He wonders if she actually sings, or if she lip-syncs.
"I saw an early video you did," he tells her, grinning. "The one about sandcastles. Looked like a tampon commercial."
She lets out a throaty chuckle and takes a deep drag on her cigarette. "Very true..." She shakes her head, self-deprecatingly.
"Nah, I liked it," he assures her, singing a couple of bars.
She shushes him and laughs again, this time a little more freely. "Shut up! You'll have the fanclub out here and trust me, you don't wanna mess with those psychos." She elaborates a little. Tells him about the security guards, the court orders, the Humvees with the blacked out windows.
Pimp my ride, it 'aint.
He can't even imagine what it must be like to be her.
She shivers and he offers her his jacket. Her arms are way too thin, her collarbones are showing. All in all, he thinks she was way more hot when she did that tampon-ad song.
She seems to have lost her sparkle.
"Hey, you wanna come back to my place?" He offers, not expecting an answer. He's surprised when she says yes.
*-*-*
Later, when she's getting dressed, searching for the thin scraps of leather and lace that she calls clothing, he finds himself daydreaming. Or nightdreaming, since it's about three a.m.
He finds himself wishing he could take her down to the bar, introduce her to Marshall and Lily, show her off to Ted. She seems lonely, for all that she's always surrounded by people. Her cell phone rings constantly but she makes no move to answer it.
Barney finds himself wondering if she needs some people in her life. He knows what it feels like to be alone in a crowd - to be the centre of attention but to still be achingly empty. He wonders how long she'll last in the world she's chosen before it chews her up.
When she's getting dressed, Barney makes no attempt at conversation. He guesses that Robin does this all the time - takes out her frustrations on a string of groupies, on a succession of empty one night stands. In a way, she's closer to him that he's comfortable with.
Except that he gets to go down to the bar the next day and just hang out in blissful anonymity with the people who choose to be with him when they could be anywhere else in this big city.
She, she gets to go back to a hotel room and her life of glitz and glamour.
His life is awesome. But he's pretty sure she's say the same thing.