Fic: The Bus Driver's Mustache (Barney/Ted)
Title: The Bus Driver's Mustache
Fandom: How I Met Your Mother
Pairing: Barney/Ted
Rating: R
Length: 1183 words
Summary: The dare was overly complicated and didn't make much sense to Ted even before the vodka made an appearance...
Warnings: None (unless drunkenness counts)
A.N.: I wrote this for Oxoniensis's Porn Battle IX. The prompt was "dare-gone-wrong."
The Bus Driver's Mustache
The dare was overly complicated and didn't make much sense to Ted even before the vodka--an imported brand emblazoned with cyrillic letters that Barney insisted translated as "The Bus Driver's Mustache"--made an appearance. But now that the level of liquid had dropped down past the eyes of the swarthy gentleman on the label and was hovering somewhere around the bottom of his nose, things were...well, "less clear" was an understatement.
"Okay," Ted said. "So...the crux of the dare is...wait, what's the crux again?"
"It has no crux," Barney answered. "That's the beauty of it. It's crux-less."
One thing Ted knew for sure was that the dare consisted of three distinct stages. Also, that the nature of those stages changed with some frequency.
"First is the cross-dressing!" Barney yelled. "That will be the catch-phrase of the evening."
"I thought first was the public singing of mellow hits of the '70s," Ted said.
Barney shook his head so vigorously he appeared to make himself dizzy. "First is the cross-dressing. First has always been the cross-dressing."
"Okay, and why do we both have to do it? Who dared who, anyway?"
Barney gave him a look that might best be described as pitying. "Oh, you poor fool," he said. "You poor, crux-less fool."
So it was that they found themselves in Barney's bedroom going through a box labeled "Sexy Lady Lost and Found." When Ted asked about it, Barney raised his eyebrows. "Sometimes," he said, "the ladies like to leave me with a souvenir."
"You mean," Ted said, a little surprised at the way his words were slurring, "that sometimes they forget things and they'd rather just give up on them than call you and arrange to get them back."
Barney shrugged. "You say tomato." He reached into the cardboard carton and pulled out a plaid wool scarf, a tube of lipstick and a single black high-heeled shoe.
"One shoe," Ted said. "She must've been in a hurry to get away."
"Indeed she was," Barney said, smiling mysteriously. He peered into the box and rummaged for another minute. "Aha!" he said triumphantly. His hand emerged, clutching a sheer red negligee and a zebra-striped corset. He held them up and looked at them appraisingly. "I think zebra is more my color," he said after a moment's consideration. He handed Ted the nightie.
Ted held the flimsy item up by one thin spaghetti strap. "And wait--where do we think we're wearing these again? 'Cause it's thirty degrees out, and I don't think the Staten Island ferry is even running at this hour."
Barney shook his head and looked at him sadly. "Try to keep up," he said. "The Staten Island ferry was three dares ago. We're not leaving this apartment."
Ted thought about it. "So how is this even a dare? I thought there was going to be public humiliation involved."
"Sorry to disappoint you. I promise to humiliate you twice tomorrow."
Ted was on the verge of realizing...something. But then he was distracted by the man on the vodka bottle. "No one has eyebrows like that," he said. "Do they?"
When he finally looked up, he discovered that Barney had suited down completely. He was now wearing nothing but the zebra corset and a pair of lacy black panties that were certainly intended to cover flatter terrain.
After that, there was a period of time that Ted would later describe as "a blur," though it could just as easily be called "a sweaty blackout." When his vodka-addled brain caught up with the rest of him, he was wearing the red negligee and was standing with his back against the wall of Barney's bedroom. His hands were above his head, his wrists loosely clasped in Barney's left hand, while Barney's right hand moved in light, fluttery movements over his armpit. After a moment, it occurred to him that he was giggling.
"Tickling?" he asked, when he caught his breath. "The second stage is tickling?"
Barney shook his head. "Not just tickling. Tickling to the point of arousal."
"What?" Ted asked, squirming as Barney's fingers moved to the sensitive skin of his neck. "I'm sure I would remember if we'd agreed on 'tickling to the point of arousal.'"
Barney shrugged. "There were a lot of ideas flying around. If you want, we can go back to the frottage."
Ted had the vague sense that there were still points that needed to be clarified, but he couldn't seem to form the words, because Barney's body was now pressed flush against his own, and Ted's hips had begun to move in a way that Ted was sure he hadn't authorized. The fabric between them was thin and created a maddening level of friction, and it wasn't until he felt Barney's erection pressing into the space between his groin and his hip that he realized he was hard, too. And had been for awhile.
"Yeah," he breathed into Barney's ear. His hands were free now, and he moved them down Barney's satin-covered sides. "Frottage kicks tickling's butt." Which gave him an idea, and he moved one hand around to cup Barney's ass.
Barney rocked against him, shifting to bring their cocks into contact with each other. "Yeah," he said. "Makes a pithier catchphrase, too."
Ted shook his head. "Too French," he said. "First is the cross-dressing, second is..." He gasped as Barney ran a fingernail over his chiffon-covered nipple. "How about: second is the humping?"
Barney groaned softly. "Second is the grinding," he said, increasing the speed of his movements. "The grinding and possibly the groping." He slipped a hand between them touched Ted through the fabric, which by now was beginning to get damp and sticky.
"Nnng," Ted said. He slid a finger along the edge of Barney's panties, and then had to pause to keep himself from giggling at the phrase "Barney's panties." But then his breath caught as Barney's hand slipped underneath his clothes and touched bare skin. And though Ted was still unclear on the exact terms of the dare, he damn well wasn't going to be left behind at this point. He stuck his hand into the underpants and began to stroke Barney's cock.
For a while, nobody said anything. Then Ted whispered, "Wasn't there something about a stage three? Because if I'm not careful, I'm not going to make it past stage two."
Barney's hand stopped moving, and he pulled back to look at Ted. "Stage three," Barney whispered, and there was something in his face that Ted hadn't seen before. Something like uncertainty. "Stage three. I dare you to kiss me."
Ted felt himself smiling, and he started to lean forward. Then he stopped, just before their lips touched. "Oh, no, buddy," he said. "I dare you to kiss me."
"Touche," said Barney, closing the distance.
As it turned out, the real catchphrase of the evening was something neither of them could repeat in polite company, though Ted learned that occasional use of the phrase, whispered into Barney's ear in a public moment, provoked a response that could only be described as legendary. Legendary or, perhaps, crux-less.