Marshall's fingers wrap around the metal cord and yank, sending the shutters tumbling down across the window. Blinking in the gloom, he sits heavily on a conference chair and bows his head down, resting his cheek against the cool wooden table.

There are words trapped inside him, suspicions and secrets. And as much as Marshall wants to let it out, to talk it through, come to terms with this roiling emotion because he knows there's no one he can turn to. Lily won't understand. She shows no interest in this corporate world, or the minutia of detail surrounding it. His wife still sees everything in stark colours, in black and white, blocking out all the grey. Lily would focus on the obvious, and thunder into her own assumptions.

This problem needs a delicate touch. Marshall lifts his head and inspects his own large hands, with long fingers that are great for writing reports, or playing ball, but not used to holding daggers or guns.

There's no one at work he can talk to either. Jenkins hasn't spoken to him since his wife took her fist to her face. None of the others care about what happens at the top. Everything's so hierarchical, wrapped up in neat little boxes.

Marshall smiles at the irony of this, at how he, too, would be blissfully unaware if he wasn't best friends with a senior VP. How he'd happily go about his job in ignorance.

This tension, this worry, it's way above his pay grade.

And if this problem was anything else, anything else at all in the company, there would be one guy he could lean on, question, and go to for advice. Even if the only response he got back was a half chuckle and the single word: "Please!"

Trouble is, this time, the only person he definitely can't ask about this is Barney. Because Barney is the problem.

*--*--*

Earlier...

He hasn't seen Barney for days, which isn't unusual in itself. Since Christmas, Barney's been noticeably absent, both from work and from the bar. Not that some of the guys in Special Projects don't do a lot of travelling. It's just that Barney had never been into it, unless there was a girl he was chasing, and since he'd gotten the hots for Robin, and after Barney and Robin had become an item, Barney pretty-much always stayed at home.

Marshall guesses that their break up, so low key in so many ways, is what pushed Barney away from Manhattan; away from his pain, maybe. It's hard to tell, when both parties insist, so vehemently, that everything is "fine".

But GNB is a darker place without the sunshine smile of his friend, and Marshall misses Barney always being around, encouraging him to goof off and offering weird insights into the power and politics behind the company. So when Marshall catches sight of his blonde friend, alone in the conference room one lunchtime, he slips inside, grinning and slapping him on the back. "Good to see you, Bro," Marshall says, and sinks down into a seat next to Barney, placing his brown paper sandwich bag down on the table between them.

Barney doesn't look up at him, but unscrews the top off a bottle of water. There's a stumbling second where Marshall's brain registers a wrongness, and processes it, but unfortunately his mouth is way ahead. He blurts, "Not got any lunch, dude?", before his logical faculties can catch up.

The wrongness is in the details. Marshall's good with the details.

And yet he presses on. "You want a sandwich? I think Lily did smoked salmon and cream cheese, with a little dill sauce that's just, Mmm! It's no problem if you want some. I can get some chips later from the vending machine."

Barney declines, with a shake of his head, and slides a finger fitfully under his shirt collar. He takes the tiniest of sips from the water bottle he's holding, and grimaces. The pained expression stays on his face as he swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing briefly.

The devil is in the detail. Marshall's always been good with the details.

Under a certain light, and with a certain mindset, you'd almost miss it. You could put the dark marks around Barney's throat down to a trick of the light, a shadow cast by his shirt, his suit jacket. You could blink and swear that the purple decorating the skin, was just smudge of lipstick, from where the notorious womaniser has, no doubt, been up to something nefarious in a stationary cupboard with some giggling secretary.

You could ignore the soft rainbow, bruised yellow to burned-oak, that circles Barney's neck . You might gloss over the way Barney's jaw works, the flint-hard expression, like he's clinging on to something by the tips of his fingers. Like it's taking every ounce of willpower just to sit still.

Marshall doesn't ignore it. "Oh my god!" He exclaims. "What happened to your neck?" Barney looks like he's been throttled, and Marshall expects some quirky comeback, some boast about a sex game that went wrong.

But his friend just shrugs, although the tension sheets off him like water off a sea-bird.

"I wasn't quick enough," is what Barney eventually says. But the words are soft, and croaking, and they crack like sheet ice under your feet in the dead of winter.