Fag Hags Are the Best (Because They Aren’t Hags At All) [Ted/Barney-ish]
Title: Fag Hags Are the Best (Because They Aren’t Hags At All)
Author: cinaed
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Spoilers up to 3x03 "The Belt"
Disclaimer: Not mine, woe.
Summary: "Barney. We're at a gay bar, looking to pick up chicks," Ted repeated. "On a list of your top ten worst plans, this is already at number three, and the night hasn't even gotten started yet." (Barney/Ted-ish)
Author's Notes: Thanks go out to redwinevinegar for beta-reading this for me. A small portion of this was originally written for the latest Porn Battle and then it took on a life of its own.
Word count: 3,000
Ted looked around and took a deep breath. Then he silently counted to ten. He thought about counting to fifty, but finally decided against it, mostly because Barney had the attention span of a gnat and would probably wander off before Ted even reached thirty. "Barney? You do realize that we are in fact at a gay bar, right? Without James?"
"But of course, mon ami, but of course!" Barney grinned at him, but when Ted just kept staring back, Barney's expression shifted to one of half-pity, half-consternation. It was similar to the look he wore whenever Ted refused to suit up. "You really don't understand the ways of a gay bar, do you?"
"I know that you have to be, oh, gay, hence the term gay bar," Ted said, and Barney shook his head, still wearing that look of half-pity. “At the very least, I suspect you need to be with a gay guy to come here. Well, not with-with, but--”
Barney interrupted him. "Ted, let me tell you a little story of a naive young man who also thought the way you did. Now, this young man was devastatingly attractive, funny, smart, and did I mention attractive? However, he had a few things to learn about--"
"Stop!" Ted shouted over the music. He noticed one of the guys nearby looking at him with interest and inched closer to Barney. Ted was 99% certain that this wasn’t going to work, but it was 100% not going to work if he got stuck talking to some guy all night. And also, Barney might be totally insane, but at least he wasn’t going to possibly grab Ted’s ass-- unless Ted had somehow slipped into an alternate universe and this was the Gay Barney universe, where James was the straight man’s Barney. "Barney, please, please, please get to the point!"
"Fag hags, my friend, fag hags." Barney beamed. "Lovely girls who love men...and not just men who love other men.” He held up a finger. “Statistic: two out of every five women hanging out at gay bars are actually fag hags."
Ted blinked and replayed the second-to-last sentence a couple times in his head until he thought he actually understood it. Well, at least that sounded like the Barney he knew and-- well, if not loved, then at least endured. "So, we're at a gay bar looking to pick up chicks."
"Yes." Barney grinned. "This is going to be legend--"
"Barney. We're at a gay bar, looking to pick up chicks," Ted repeated. "On a list of your top ten worst plans, this is already at number three, and the night hasn't even gotten started yet."
"O ye of little faith," Barney said, slapping him on the shoulder.
**
**
"No offense, but your boyfriend's an asshole," someone said in Ted's ear. He turned to blink at the guy who'd been staring at him earlier. The guy was tall, muscular, good-looking if you swung that way -- which Ted didn’t, no matter how many times Barney joked about him and Marshall being bigger girls than Lily and Robin.
"Who?" he said, blinking some more. The guy nodded towards Barney, who was in the middle of 'consoling' a teary girl telling him her whole, crappy life-story-- something about walking in on her boyfriend with her shrink. Or maybe it had been her mother. Ted had gotten uncomfortable and wandered over to the bar to get a drink as soon as the waterworks had started. Plus, he hadn’t really been paying attention in the first place. "Oh, he's not-- we're not--" He gave up and shrugged. "He's just being Barney."
"So ‘just being Barney’ means he can get away with bringing you to a bar and then ignoring you?" the guy asked flatly. There was a look of disapproval on his face. "Look, I usually don't butt into people's business, but I just went through this myself. This guy obviously isn't looking for a serious thing. You deserve better."
"Um, okay," Ted said after a moment, feeling torn between murderous rage towards Barney for making even a stranger at a bar pity his fake love-life and amusement that Barney was actually pulling off playing gay. Well, Ted had always thought that Barney was the gayest straight man he'd ever met. "Look, I think I'm going to go, but, uh, thanks for the advice."
"No problem," the guy said, giving him a friendly grin. The guy thought he had shitty taste in boyfriends. Wonderful.
When Ted got to Barney's side, the declaration of his departure on the tip of his tongue, it was just in time to hear Barney say with frightening earnestness, "I'm sure he'd be up for that, Jenny. We're both not complete sixes on the Kinsey scale, after all."
"Up for what?" Ted asked; a sinking feeling began in his gut as Barney turned a wide, dangerous smile on him. Yeah, this night had just moved up to number two on the list of Barney’s worst plans ever (and it wasn’t number one only because he and Barney hadn’t wound up in jail-- yet). "Up for what, Barney?"
Barney kept grinning. "Up for this," he said, and kissed him. It was a hard, fast kiss, like the one Barney had given Marshall that one time-- only Ted doubted Barney had given Marshall tongue.
When Barney broke off the kiss, Ted coughed and Jenny giggled. When Barney leaned in again, Ted flinched, but all Barney did was gleefully whisper into Ted's ear, "I told you. Fag hags are kinky."
"I hate you so much right now," Ted muttered.
Barney pouted. "Ted, Ted, Ted. Give it time. Soon you will come to understand the wonder and glory that is the gay bar," he declared and then turned back to Jenny, wrapping an arm around her.
Shit. If Ted ever had kids, this was going to be a story he never told them. Ever. Well, unless one of his kids turned out to be gay, in which case he might tell them this story as a way of bridging the generation (and sexuality) gap.
He eyed Barney. Then again, maybe not.
**
**
“Dude, he was so hitting on you,” Marshall declared halfway through Ted’s recount of that night at the gay bar. Ted hadn’t even gotten to the part where Barney ditched him and went home with that Jenny chick, gravely explaining to her that Ted was still “new to this scene” and not quite ready for threesomes yet.
Ted stared for a moment and wondered if someone had slipped something into Marshall’s drink. Or if Marshall knew something he didn’t. “Uh, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Marshall, but Barney is very, very--”
“No, no, the other guy. The one who said you deserved better.”
Ted continued to stare, but now Lily was nodding. Apparently the insanity was contagious. “That was totally a pick-up line.”
Even Robin agreed; and thus the madness trifecta was complete. “An ultra lame one, but a pick-up line nonetheless.”
“He was not trying to pick me up!” Ted protested. His voice broke for the second time in two days. What, had going to a gay bar magically turned him fifteen years old again? “He was just--”
“Gay for you?” Robin suggested sweetly, and Lily gave her a high-five as Marshall snickered into his drink.
“That’s it, I’m getting new friends,” Ted declared and then sighed as they all ignored him. True, it wasn’t a threat he was going to make good on, but they could at least humor him.
“Did I see a patented Aldrin high-five? What brilliance did I miss?” Barney asked, sliding into the booth next to Ted. When Marshall just snickered some more and Ted felt his face warm, Barney’s expression turned scarily intent. “Oh, you have to tell me now.”
“Some guy at the bar was hot for Ted,” Robin informed him.
Barney made a face and shook his head sadly. “Dude, Ted, work with me here. There are the things I need to know if we’re going to get you laid, and at the top of that list is if you’ve decided to become a lesbian.”
“One, that crack about me being a lesbian doesn’t even make sense since I’d be dating guys, and two, that guy was not hitting on me,” Ted snapped. “He was just, uh, giving me dating advice.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Lily said in a sing-song voice and Robin laughed.
“Oh snap.” Marshall grinned. “This is one of those moments when I’m really proud to be your soon-to-be husband, baby.”
Naturally, Barney had to chime in with a, “Well-played, Aldrin. Shakespeare high-five!”
Ted resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. Or elbow Barney out of the way and make a break for the door. The latter seemed much more satisfying and had the added bonus of ensuring that an offended Barney would leave him alone for at least twenty-four hours.
“Hilarious,” he said instead. “You guys should take your act on the road, you know that?”
“We’d need a name,” Robin said solemnly.
Ted sighed as the group began to discuss what would make a good name for their comedic group -- suggestions ranging from Barney Stinson and the Legendaries (Barney, who frowned at the resounding no) to No Shortage of Lawyers (Marshall, who had to be the only person in New York who actually thought lawyer jokes were funny).
Yeah, he definitely needed new friends.
**
**
Ted folded his arms against his chest and just looked at Barney’s expectant expression for a long moment. Sometimes, he truly wondered about Barney's tenuous grasp on reality. “You really think I’m going back to that bar, don’t you?”
Barney’s expression changed to a half-incredulous one. “You really think you aren’t? Ted, let me tell you something--”
“If you spout another fake statistic at me, I am closing the door in your face,” Ted informed him and Barney shut up. He took a moment to revel in the glorious silence, suddenly glad that he’d had the foresight to block the entrance to his apartment so Barney couldn’t come inside.
It was almost a tragedy to shatter the silence, but Ted added, “If I decide to change my sexual orientation -- which, might I add, I’ve been pretty happy with for, oh, my entire life -- I’ll let you know. Until then, no more gay bars.”
Barney shook his head and sighed, as though Ted was doing something stupid again, like wanting to get married and have kids or insisting that there was such a person as The One. “Fine. Just don’t complain when I tell you about all the awesome sex I have tonight.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Ted assured him and shut the door in Barney’s face, ignoring Barney’s muffled protest. He turned back in time to catch the DVD case Marshall tossed at him. He read the title, eyebrows rising of their own free will. “Minority Report? Seriously?”
“Totally! It’s gonna be awesome. I mean, what would you do if you were accused of a murder you hadn’t committed yet?” Marshall asked. He was practically bouncing on his seat from excitement.
Next to him, Lily said happily, “Plus, Tom Cruise may be crazy, but you have to admit he’s still hot.”
After a few minutes of listening to Lily and Robin’s great debate -- Tom Cruise: Crazy Hot or Just Crazy -- Ted shook his head and started Minority Report, hoping that they'd just watch the movie. Instead, Robin and Lily continued their argument in low whispers.
Maybe he would have had more fun with Barney.
**
**
His cell fell off the coffee table as it skittered across the surface, interrupting the music playing over the ending credits. Wincing at the sound of the phone hitting the floor, Ted watched it make its way across the floor for another minute and then picked it up before it could get out of reach.
As Marshall muted the TV, he asked tiredly, “What do you want, Barney?”
True to form, Barney ignored the question. “Totally hypothetical scenario: if I told you that your gay boyfriend from last night was threatening me, would you rescue me or just laugh and hang up, leaving me to be found three days later floating in the Hudson, murdered while in the prime of my life?” There was a pause. “Second hypothetical scenario: if your gay boyfriend murdered me, would you actually suit up for my funeral?”
Ted stared at the phone for a moment. “Barney, is someone threatening you?”
Marshall, Lily, and Robin looked up, interested.
“Answer the totally hypothetical questions, Ted.” There was a trace of urgency in Barney’s voice, the tone he reserved for what he considered critical moments-- the time one of his angry one-night stands broke into his apartment to destroy all of his suits and he needed them to distract her while he called the cops, for example.
“Uh,” Ted said and glanced at the others, who were now watching avidly. He mouthed to them, ‘The guy you think was hitting on me is threatening Barney’ and watched their eyes widen. He sighed. “Barney, do you actually need me to come rescue you or is this just a trick to get me to the gay bar?”
“I am wounded by that accusation, Ted, wounded,” Barney sniffed, and then added in a lower voice, “And soon to be literally rather than figuratively, if you get my drift, and I think you do.”
Ted sighed again. Barney was probably lying, but he supposed he should go just on the very, very off chance Barney was telling the truth. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”
**
**
When he got to the bar, Barney was nowhere to be found. Ted rolled his eyes and dug out his cell from his pocket. If this was Barney’s idea of payback for shutting the door in his face, Ted would find a way to get revenge. “Barney, where are you?”
“Shh, not so loud! I’m in the restroom.” Was Barney actually whispering?
“Wait, let me get this straight.” Despite his irritation, Ted felt a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. If Barney was actually doing what Ted suspected he was, then Barney would never live this down. “You’re hiding in the restroom.”
He could picture Barney’s indignant expression at the fiercely whispered response: “If by hiding you mean cleverly concealing myself so that your gay boyfriend won’t hurt me, then yes, I am in fact hiding. Are you at the bar?”
Ted debated arguing yet again that the guy wasn’t his boyfriend and settled for a sardonic, “Yes, Barney, your knight in shining armor is here. I’ve even got a cab waiting outside.”
Barney muttered something that he didn’t quite catch. It sounded suspiciously like ‘Oh thank you, merciful Jesus’ but Ted might have misheard. Barney emerged from the restroom a moment later, nervous gaze scanning the room before catching sight of Ted at the door.
“Away from this accursed place, Sir Ted,” he commanded, seizing Ted’s shoulder and practically dragging him from the bar. He was a little wild around the eyes and okay, maybe Barney hadn’t been making up the ‘being threatened’ scenario.
Throwing himself into the back of the cab, Barney cast a final dark glance at the gay bar. As the cab pulled away from the curb, he said, solemn, “There be dragons, Ted. Huge, skulking dragons that seem to think I’m cheating on you.”
Ted opened his mouth to say something -- he wasn’t quite sure what -- when Barney snorted.
“Absolutely ridiculous, of course. I mean, please, if I were going to see what James enjoyed so much, I’d bag a guy way hotter than you.” He paused, shot himself a speculative look in the rear-view mirror, and then smiled in satisfaction. “Yeah, I could totally get a 10, girl or guy.”
Ted wasn’t sure whether he should be disturbed or insulted. He settled for that familiar mixture of both as he asked, despite his better judgment, “And I am a what, exactly?”
Barney sighed and shook his head. “Ted, do you really think you can claim a place as a 10 when you consistently refuse to suit up? I mean, honestly. Some -- like Scherbatsky and I -- are natural tens, and others -- like you and Aldrin -- are nines who could be total tens if they put in a little effort.”
Ted noticed Barney didn’t say what he considered Marshall to be. Actually, that was probably for the best. Slouching against the door and wishing he’d grabbed a beer at the bar, Ted just looked at Barney for a moment. “I hope this little adventure means we’re never going to a gay bar again.”
Barney waved a dismissive hand. “Please. Fag hags may be kinky, but two out of three are hoping for a guy-guy-girl threesome, which, uh, sorry, no deal. I will not win the Belt by sleeping with another dude.”
“That’s reassuring,” Ted said, dry as the desert. “After that kiss in front of Jenny, I was wondering how far you’d go to win it.”
Barney just grinned and ignored him. “So, anyways, I was thinking tomorrow, something classic: you, me, laser tag. We’ll be going up against Chris and his friends. It’s gonna be awesome.”
“And how old, exactly, is this Chris?”
“Hey, I’ll have you know that middle school kids are fast little bastards,” Barney said, frowning and looking injured at Ted’s tone. His frown deepened, turning into a partial pout. “Besides, they cheat.”
Ted shook his head, deciding not to point out that Barney cheated as well. “Take Robin,” he suggested.
Barney looked thoughtful. “Scherbatsky does show no mercy. You keep falling for the patented ‘Boo hoo, I fell down and hurt my knee, don’t shoot me’ line. Really, you’d think after the first four times you might finally catch on, but no.”
He pulled out his cell. “Yo, Scherbatsky, prepare to suit up for laser tag tomorrow. We’re up against Chris.” A pause. “Yeah, I know he grabbed your ass last time, which is one of the reasons we’re going to kick his ass tomorrow.” He snorted. “Come on, you can’t tell me that you wouldn’t love to see him cry.”
As Barney and Robin began to plot Chris’s downfall, Ted smiled to himself and shook his head. It was like he’d told the guy at the bar -- Barney was just being Barney and -- despite his vocal and often frequent complaints -- Ted really wouldn’t have him any other way.
Author: cinaed
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Spoilers up to 3x03 "The Belt"
Disclaimer: Not mine, woe.
Summary: "Barney. We're at a gay bar, looking to pick up chicks," Ted repeated. "On a list of your top ten worst plans, this is already at number three, and the night hasn't even gotten started yet." (Barney/Ted-ish)
Author's Notes: Thanks go out to redwinevinegar for beta-reading this for me. A small portion of this was originally written for the latest Porn Battle and then it took on a life of its own.
Word count: 3,000
Ted looked around and took a deep breath. Then he silently counted to ten. He thought about counting to fifty, but finally decided against it, mostly because Barney had the attention span of a gnat and would probably wander off before Ted even reached thirty. "Barney? You do realize that we are in fact at a gay bar, right? Without James?"
"But of course, mon ami, but of course!" Barney grinned at him, but when Ted just kept staring back, Barney's expression shifted to one of half-pity, half-consternation. It was similar to the look he wore whenever Ted refused to suit up. "You really don't understand the ways of a gay bar, do you?"
"I know that you have to be, oh, gay, hence the term gay bar," Ted said, and Barney shook his head, still wearing that look of half-pity. “At the very least, I suspect you need to be with a gay guy to come here. Well, not with-with, but--”
Barney interrupted him. "Ted, let me tell you a little story of a naive young man who also thought the way you did. Now, this young man was devastatingly attractive, funny, smart, and did I mention attractive? However, he had a few things to learn about--"
"Stop!" Ted shouted over the music. He noticed one of the guys nearby looking at him with interest and inched closer to Barney. Ted was 99% certain that this wasn’t going to work, but it was 100% not going to work if he got stuck talking to some guy all night. And also, Barney might be totally insane, but at least he wasn’t going to possibly grab Ted’s ass-- unless Ted had somehow slipped into an alternate universe and this was the Gay Barney universe, where James was the straight man’s Barney. "Barney, please, please, please get to the point!"
"Fag hags, my friend, fag hags." Barney beamed. "Lovely girls who love men...and not just men who love other men.” He held up a finger. “Statistic: two out of every five women hanging out at gay bars are actually fag hags."
Ted blinked and replayed the second-to-last sentence a couple times in his head until he thought he actually understood it. Well, at least that sounded like the Barney he knew and-- well, if not loved, then at least endured. "So, we're at a gay bar looking to pick up chicks."
"Yes." Barney grinned. "This is going to be legend--"
"Barney. We're at a gay bar, looking to pick up chicks," Ted repeated. "On a list of your top ten worst plans, this is already at number three, and the night hasn't even gotten started yet."
"O ye of little faith," Barney said, slapping him on the shoulder.
**
**
"No offense, but your boyfriend's an asshole," someone said in Ted's ear. He turned to blink at the guy who'd been staring at him earlier. The guy was tall, muscular, good-looking if you swung that way -- which Ted didn’t, no matter how many times Barney joked about him and Marshall being bigger girls than Lily and Robin.
"Who?" he said, blinking some more. The guy nodded towards Barney, who was in the middle of 'consoling' a teary girl telling him her whole, crappy life-story-- something about walking in on her boyfriend with her shrink. Or maybe it had been her mother. Ted had gotten uncomfortable and wandered over to the bar to get a drink as soon as the waterworks had started. Plus, he hadn’t really been paying attention in the first place. "Oh, he's not-- we're not--" He gave up and shrugged. "He's just being Barney."
"So ‘just being Barney’ means he can get away with bringing you to a bar and then ignoring you?" the guy asked flatly. There was a look of disapproval on his face. "Look, I usually don't butt into people's business, but I just went through this myself. This guy obviously isn't looking for a serious thing. You deserve better."
"Um, okay," Ted said after a moment, feeling torn between murderous rage towards Barney for making even a stranger at a bar pity his fake love-life and amusement that Barney was actually pulling off playing gay. Well, Ted had always thought that Barney was the gayest straight man he'd ever met. "Look, I think I'm going to go, but, uh, thanks for the advice."
"No problem," the guy said, giving him a friendly grin. The guy thought he had shitty taste in boyfriends. Wonderful.
When Ted got to Barney's side, the declaration of his departure on the tip of his tongue, it was just in time to hear Barney say with frightening earnestness, "I'm sure he'd be up for that, Jenny. We're both not complete sixes on the Kinsey scale, after all."
"Up for what?" Ted asked; a sinking feeling began in his gut as Barney turned a wide, dangerous smile on him. Yeah, this night had just moved up to number two on the list of Barney’s worst plans ever (and it wasn’t number one only because he and Barney hadn’t wound up in jail-- yet). "Up for what, Barney?"
Barney kept grinning. "Up for this," he said, and kissed him. It was a hard, fast kiss, like the one Barney had given Marshall that one time-- only Ted doubted Barney had given Marshall tongue.
When Barney broke off the kiss, Ted coughed and Jenny giggled. When Barney leaned in again, Ted flinched, but all Barney did was gleefully whisper into Ted's ear, "I told you. Fag hags are kinky."
"I hate you so much right now," Ted muttered.
Barney pouted. "Ted, Ted, Ted. Give it time. Soon you will come to understand the wonder and glory that is the gay bar," he declared and then turned back to Jenny, wrapping an arm around her.
Shit. If Ted ever had kids, this was going to be a story he never told them. Ever. Well, unless one of his kids turned out to be gay, in which case he might tell them this story as a way of bridging the generation (and sexuality) gap.
He eyed Barney. Then again, maybe not.
**
**
“Dude, he was so hitting on you,” Marshall declared halfway through Ted’s recount of that night at the gay bar. Ted hadn’t even gotten to the part where Barney ditched him and went home with that Jenny chick, gravely explaining to her that Ted was still “new to this scene” and not quite ready for threesomes yet.
Ted stared for a moment and wondered if someone had slipped something into Marshall’s drink. Or if Marshall knew something he didn’t. “Uh, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Marshall, but Barney is very, very--”
“No, no, the other guy. The one who said you deserved better.”
Ted continued to stare, but now Lily was nodding. Apparently the insanity was contagious. “That was totally a pick-up line.”
Even Robin agreed; and thus the madness trifecta was complete. “An ultra lame one, but a pick-up line nonetheless.”
“He was not trying to pick me up!” Ted protested. His voice broke for the second time in two days. What, had going to a gay bar magically turned him fifteen years old again? “He was just--”
“Gay for you?” Robin suggested sweetly, and Lily gave her a high-five as Marshall snickered into his drink.
“That’s it, I’m getting new friends,” Ted declared and then sighed as they all ignored him. True, it wasn’t a threat he was going to make good on, but they could at least humor him.
“Did I see a patented Aldrin high-five? What brilliance did I miss?” Barney asked, sliding into the booth next to Ted. When Marshall just snickered some more and Ted felt his face warm, Barney’s expression turned scarily intent. “Oh, you have to tell me now.”
“Some guy at the bar was hot for Ted,” Robin informed him.
Barney made a face and shook his head sadly. “Dude, Ted, work with me here. There are the things I need to know if we’re going to get you laid, and at the top of that list is if you’ve decided to become a lesbian.”
“One, that crack about me being a lesbian doesn’t even make sense since I’d be dating guys, and two, that guy was not hitting on me,” Ted snapped. “He was just, uh, giving me dating advice.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Lily said in a sing-song voice and Robin laughed.
“Oh snap.” Marshall grinned. “This is one of those moments when I’m really proud to be your soon-to-be husband, baby.”
Naturally, Barney had to chime in with a, “Well-played, Aldrin. Shakespeare high-five!”
Ted resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. Or elbow Barney out of the way and make a break for the door. The latter seemed much more satisfying and had the added bonus of ensuring that an offended Barney would leave him alone for at least twenty-four hours.
“Hilarious,” he said instead. “You guys should take your act on the road, you know that?”
“We’d need a name,” Robin said solemnly.
Ted sighed as the group began to discuss what would make a good name for their comedic group -- suggestions ranging from Barney Stinson and the Legendaries (Barney, who frowned at the resounding no) to No Shortage of Lawyers (Marshall, who had to be the only person in New York who actually thought lawyer jokes were funny).
Yeah, he definitely needed new friends.
**
**
Ted folded his arms against his chest and just looked at Barney’s expectant expression for a long moment. Sometimes, he truly wondered about Barney's tenuous grasp on reality. “You really think I’m going back to that bar, don’t you?”
Barney’s expression changed to a half-incredulous one. “You really think you aren’t? Ted, let me tell you something--”
“If you spout another fake statistic at me, I am closing the door in your face,” Ted informed him and Barney shut up. He took a moment to revel in the glorious silence, suddenly glad that he’d had the foresight to block the entrance to his apartment so Barney couldn’t come inside.
It was almost a tragedy to shatter the silence, but Ted added, “If I decide to change my sexual orientation -- which, might I add, I’ve been pretty happy with for, oh, my entire life -- I’ll let you know. Until then, no more gay bars.”
Barney shook his head and sighed, as though Ted was doing something stupid again, like wanting to get married and have kids or insisting that there was such a person as The One. “Fine. Just don’t complain when I tell you about all the awesome sex I have tonight.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Ted assured him and shut the door in Barney’s face, ignoring Barney’s muffled protest. He turned back in time to catch the DVD case Marshall tossed at him. He read the title, eyebrows rising of their own free will. “Minority Report? Seriously?”
“Totally! It’s gonna be awesome. I mean, what would you do if you were accused of a murder you hadn’t committed yet?” Marshall asked. He was practically bouncing on his seat from excitement.
Next to him, Lily said happily, “Plus, Tom Cruise may be crazy, but you have to admit he’s still hot.”
After a few minutes of listening to Lily and Robin’s great debate -- Tom Cruise: Crazy Hot or Just Crazy -- Ted shook his head and started Minority Report, hoping that they'd just watch the movie. Instead, Robin and Lily continued their argument in low whispers.
Maybe he would have had more fun with Barney.
**
**
His cell fell off the coffee table as it skittered across the surface, interrupting the music playing over the ending credits. Wincing at the sound of the phone hitting the floor, Ted watched it make its way across the floor for another minute and then picked it up before it could get out of reach.
As Marshall muted the TV, he asked tiredly, “What do you want, Barney?”
True to form, Barney ignored the question. “Totally hypothetical scenario: if I told you that your gay boyfriend from last night was threatening me, would you rescue me or just laugh and hang up, leaving me to be found three days later floating in the Hudson, murdered while in the prime of my life?” There was a pause. “Second hypothetical scenario: if your gay boyfriend murdered me, would you actually suit up for my funeral?”
Ted stared at the phone for a moment. “Barney, is someone threatening you?”
Marshall, Lily, and Robin looked up, interested.
“Answer the totally hypothetical questions, Ted.” There was a trace of urgency in Barney’s voice, the tone he reserved for what he considered critical moments-- the time one of his angry one-night stands broke into his apartment to destroy all of his suits and he needed them to distract her while he called the cops, for example.
“Uh,” Ted said and glanced at the others, who were now watching avidly. He mouthed to them, ‘The guy you think was hitting on me is threatening Barney’ and watched their eyes widen. He sighed. “Barney, do you actually need me to come rescue you or is this just a trick to get me to the gay bar?”
“I am wounded by that accusation, Ted, wounded,” Barney sniffed, and then added in a lower voice, “And soon to be literally rather than figuratively, if you get my drift, and I think you do.”
Ted sighed again. Barney was probably lying, but he supposed he should go just on the very, very off chance Barney was telling the truth. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”
**
**
When he got to the bar, Barney was nowhere to be found. Ted rolled his eyes and dug out his cell from his pocket. If this was Barney’s idea of payback for shutting the door in his face, Ted would find a way to get revenge. “Barney, where are you?”
“Shh, not so loud! I’m in the restroom.” Was Barney actually whispering?
“Wait, let me get this straight.” Despite his irritation, Ted felt a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. If Barney was actually doing what Ted suspected he was, then Barney would never live this down. “You’re hiding in the restroom.”
He could picture Barney’s indignant expression at the fiercely whispered response: “If by hiding you mean cleverly concealing myself so that your gay boyfriend won’t hurt me, then yes, I am in fact hiding. Are you at the bar?”
Ted debated arguing yet again that the guy wasn’t his boyfriend and settled for a sardonic, “Yes, Barney, your knight in shining armor is here. I’ve even got a cab waiting outside.”
Barney muttered something that he didn’t quite catch. It sounded suspiciously like ‘Oh thank you, merciful Jesus’ but Ted might have misheard. Barney emerged from the restroom a moment later, nervous gaze scanning the room before catching sight of Ted at the door.
“Away from this accursed place, Sir Ted,” he commanded, seizing Ted’s shoulder and practically dragging him from the bar. He was a little wild around the eyes and okay, maybe Barney hadn’t been making up the ‘being threatened’ scenario.
Throwing himself into the back of the cab, Barney cast a final dark glance at the gay bar. As the cab pulled away from the curb, he said, solemn, “There be dragons, Ted. Huge, skulking dragons that seem to think I’m cheating on you.”
Ted opened his mouth to say something -- he wasn’t quite sure what -- when Barney snorted.
“Absolutely ridiculous, of course. I mean, please, if I were going to see what James enjoyed so much, I’d bag a guy way hotter than you.” He paused, shot himself a speculative look in the rear-view mirror, and then smiled in satisfaction. “Yeah, I could totally get a 10, girl or guy.”
Ted wasn’t sure whether he should be disturbed or insulted. He settled for that familiar mixture of both as he asked, despite his better judgment, “And I am a what, exactly?”
Barney sighed and shook his head. “Ted, do you really think you can claim a place as a 10 when you consistently refuse to suit up? I mean, honestly. Some -- like Scherbatsky and I -- are natural tens, and others -- like you and Aldrin -- are nines who could be total tens if they put in a little effort.”
Ted noticed Barney didn’t say what he considered Marshall to be. Actually, that was probably for the best. Slouching against the door and wishing he’d grabbed a beer at the bar, Ted just looked at Barney for a moment. “I hope this little adventure means we’re never going to a gay bar again.”
Barney waved a dismissive hand. “Please. Fag hags may be kinky, but two out of three are hoping for a guy-guy-girl threesome, which, uh, sorry, no deal. I will not win the Belt by sleeping with another dude.”
“That’s reassuring,” Ted said, dry as the desert. “After that kiss in front of Jenny, I was wondering how far you’d go to win it.”
Barney just grinned and ignored him. “So, anyways, I was thinking tomorrow, something classic: you, me, laser tag. We’ll be going up against Chris and his friends. It’s gonna be awesome.”
“And how old, exactly, is this Chris?”
“Hey, I’ll have you know that middle school kids are fast little bastards,” Barney said, frowning and looking injured at Ted’s tone. His frown deepened, turning into a partial pout. “Besides, they cheat.”
Ted shook his head, deciding not to point out that Barney cheated as well. “Take Robin,” he suggested.
Barney looked thoughtful. “Scherbatsky does show no mercy. You keep falling for the patented ‘Boo hoo, I fell down and hurt my knee, don’t shoot me’ line. Really, you’d think after the first four times you might finally catch on, but no.”
He pulled out his cell. “Yo, Scherbatsky, prepare to suit up for laser tag tomorrow. We’re up against Chris.” A pause. “Yeah, I know he grabbed your ass last time, which is one of the reasons we’re going to kick his ass tomorrow.” He snorted. “Come on, you can’t tell me that you wouldn’t love to see him cry.”
As Barney and Robin began to plot Chris’s downfall, Ted smiled to himself and shook his head. It was like he’d told the guy at the bar -- Barney was just being Barney and -- despite his vocal and often frequent complaints -- Ted really wouldn’t have him any other way.