and I'll try not to sing out of key

[bro_codebreaker]

Who: Barney & Crowley
What: Actually Talking About Things, gasp!
When: Wednesday afternoon
Where: Barney's room
Rating: Er ... PG-13, maybe? They don't have particularly rotten mouths.

The old journal had fallen out of the kitchen cupboard that morning, while he was rummaging for his favorite coffee mug. Once he'd gotten over the inital shock - and the girly shriek of surprise that he was glad the journal had, for once, managed to not pick up - Barney was left to wonder how the heck it had found its way there in the first place. As he waited for the first cup of coffee of the day to brew, he leaned on the counter in his suit pajamas and leafed through the pages, starting at the end and working his way back. There was the page where he'd basejumped the Eiffel tower ... there was the Halloween he and Faye had dressed as a card shark and Lady Luck ... there was the night he'd told Ted his loss. Jilly, Lorne, Tamaki ... the handwriting of friends he wouldn't see again, and would probably forget if he didn't remember to go back and read them once in a while. Yue, Claire, Neku, Ken ... Jude. People he'd almost forgotten, already.

"Damn."

He closed the journal, set it aside, and resolved to forget about it. He'd just barely begun to find his groove again ... he didn't need old memories dragging him down. Plunking a bowl of apples down on top of the book to keep it closed - old habits died hard - he went to go suit up for the day, singing Bon Jovi loudly to himself as he did, to chase away the blues.

After all, what were the odds of friends who didn't ever actually come around to his room popping in at that VERY MOMENT to say hi?

Comments

[onlyanapple]

"Yes. And booze, to ply her with," the demon paused to consider. "And maybe some diamonds."

[bro_codebreaker]

Squinting thoughtfully, Barney tapped the end of his pen against the pad. "Yeah, but would she be able to tell if they were wished-up diamonds? That seems like the kind of weird crazy impossible Faye thing she'd do."

[onlyanapple]

Oh. Right. Crowley frowns.

"Probably. That said, if we convince her she can sell them for prettier things, it might work."

[bro_codebreaker]

And that, Barney reflected, was why Faye was his girlfriend. He actually sort of kind of understood how her crazy girl brain worked. He had to give it to the guy, really. Girls were complicated and scary and just plain weird, most of the time. "Yeah, maybe. ... How do you do that, bee-tee-dub?"

[onlyanapple]

It helped having six thousand years of experience and knowing the First Woman, really. That was a big help.

"There's an art to it," the demon replied, somewhat smugly. "It's a little like distraction. You have to make her see the big personal gain and not what she has to go through to get it."

[bro_codebreaker]

Barney had a few hundred one-night stands' worth of experience, but in this case it really was shaping up to be a question of quality versus quantity. For now, he would defer to the master. "Huh. And here I thought that trick only worked on horses and little fat kids."

[onlyanapple]

"And Faye Valentine," Crowley nodded sagely. "She likes simple pleasures. Expensive simple pleasures, but simple pleasures all the same."