Fic: Which Nobody Can Deny (1/4)
Barney entered the bar, like she had pretty much every day for the past - three? Four? - years. She went to the bar and ordered a scotch and soda, like she always did (although she probably downed it a little more quickly than usual). Then she steeled herself up to go to the booth, like she always did.
Lily, naturally, was the first one to see her. “Well, hey, grandma!” she said, in that stupid chipper tone of hers. “Where’s the walker?”
Barney would usually have a witty comeback - she and Lily had bitchy banter down to a fine art by now - but she just sat down next to Ted and told her to shut up.
“Happy birthday,” Marshall said, cautiously.
“What’s it like being 30?” Ted asked, with a facetious smile on his face. She glared at them both.
“I was born at exactly 10:47 PM. It is currently…” She looked at her watch. “8:05 PM. By my reckoning, I’m still twenty-nine for another two hours and forty-two minutes. Anyone who disagrees with me will die a slow and painful death. Got it?”
There was a long and uneasy silence.
Ted started whistling “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”, and Barney went to get another drink.
* * *
10:15 PM. God damn it. Just over half an hour left.
Marshall and Lily had made an excuse to leave about twenty minutes before, and Barney totally saw Ted give them a look that said, “How dare you leave me here with this dried-up old hag?”
Or something. Barney was the wrong side of drunk, old, and not-laid. Trust today to be the day where there are no drunken bicurious coeds or butch lesbians around.
Ted came back to the table with a pitcher of beer. “Here you go, buddy.”
Barney nodded and filled up a tankard. “Birthdays suck.”
“Come on. It’s not so bad.”
Barney looked up at Ted. “Dude. I’m thirty. I am thirty years old. Do you even know what that DOES to a woman?”
“It’s not like you’re going to get old overnight.” Ted sounded slightly condescending, and Barney didn’t like it in the least.
“Trust me, Ted. As a keen observer of the female body, I know what happens when a girl turns thirty. Her skin loses its elasticity. Everything - her boobs, her ass, her face - EVERYTHING, Ted - starts to sag.” Barney leans over the table. “Have you ever seen a thirty-year-old woman up close, bro?”
“You’re overreacting. Besides, what about cougars?”
“Ah, see. After about forty-five or so, it turns a corner. The value of the woman’s sexual experience and appetite starts to outweigh the repulsiveness of her slowly dying body.”
“Do you even listen to yourself when you talk?”
“Plus, PLUS.” Barney somehow managed to lose her balance while sitting down, which was a feat in itself. It took her a few seconds to recover. “By then, they’ll have divorced their rich husbands, and can afford really awesome plastic surgeons.”
Ted just gave her a look.
Barney took another sip of her beer.
“Listen,” Ted said, taking a deep breath. “It’s not the end of the world. You’re still going to be attractive, no matter how old you are.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re twenty-seven. You’ve still got three years of boning women left in you. If you finally listen to me and stop being lame, that is.” She paused. “Only, no, you have way more than three years, because girls will totally sleep with older dudes! God, I wish I was a guy.”
“Well, I think you’re going to be fine.”
Barney looked down at her chest. “I should get a boob job.”
Ted sighed, exasperatedly. “You don’t need a boob job. You look great the way you are. You’re gorgeous.”
Barney paused. “We should totally go to a gay bar. I’d get laid for sure.”
Ted rolled his eyes. “It’s your birthday.”
* * *
It was about one in the morning when Barney and Ted stumbled out of the club.
“How in the HELL did that not work?” Barney asked, mournfully. She definitely saw Ted rolling his eyes. “What?”
“I think we’d better get you home.” Ted put his arm around her, propping her up. Barney could feel his grip through the fabric of her sleeve, and even though he was warm and it wasn’t a cold night, not for New York in the springtime, she still shivered.
“You’re no fun,” Barney said, as Ted hailed a cab. “It’s my freakin’ birthday.”
“Yeah, well. You don’t even like birthdays.”
“I like other peoples’ birthdays. It’s just mine that sucks.” She sighed. “There’s always hookers. They don’t care if I’m over thirty, as long as I pay them.”
“Barney, I’m telling you, you don’t need hookers. You’re still -“
“Yeah, yeah, still attractive. I heard you the first ten million times.” Then it hit her, and she started to laugh.
“What?” Ted snapped.
Barney slung an arm around his neck. “You think I’m hot.”
Ted chuckled, unable to keep the nerves out of his voice. “I think you’re drunk.”
She grinned. “You totally were hitting on me. When we met."
Ted shook his head and tried to hail a passing cab, but it drove past them.
“You wanted to sleep with me,” she continued, in a singsong voice. “But I wouldn’t, because I’m gay.”
“Yeah,” Ted said, with a sort of heavy sigh. “You’re gay.”
Barney laughed, even when she saw Ted’s brow furrow, and she suspected that maybe she shouldn’t laugh anymore.
“Hey, dude.” Barney tried to regain some composure. “It’s OK if you want to sleep with me. I’ve wanted to sleep with Lil since the day I met her, and it worked out.”
“You and Lily hate each other.”
Barney shrugged. “She wants me. Bad.”
Ted laughed and shook his head. “You are ridiculous.”
Barney bit her lip and looked at Ted. She’d always suspected that he wanted her. And he was good-looking. Objectively. If his hair was a little less prissy. And shorter than hers (seriously, he had so much hair, she was sort of afraid what it would look like without gel). And, yeah, OK, he was a guy, but that could work out for her. It was simple biology - he’d have to do all of the work. And, to be honest, Barney wasn’t in the mood to pick up some drunk chick and have to sweat making sure both of them had a good time. It was a logical decision.
So she kissed him.
She remembers a lot of things about it: the fact that it took Ted a while to come around to the fact that he was being kissed and start to react; how, when he did start to kiss her back, he turned out to be surprisingly good at it; that he cupped her face and pulled her closer and, swear to God, she felt her heart flutter (which is stupid and sentimental and Barney would never, ever admit it in public, but it’s what happened).
And then he pulled away and she didn’t open her eyes for a few seconds. And then he smiled at her, and she swallowed hard.
“So,” she said. “We going back to your place or what?”
* * *
“You’re sure you want to do this?” Ted asked, for what seemed like the hundredth time, as they stumbled into his apartment. Barney rolled her eyes.
“Jesus Christ, Ted. Have I taught you nothing? If a girl wants to have sex with you, you don’t give her an out, you hit that!”
Ted chuckled and kissed her lightly. They both heard a moan come from Marshall and Lily’s room. Ted pulled back and put a finger on his lips. Barney nodded. Waking them up now would probably lead to way more awkwardness than she was prepared to deal with.
Barney ran her hands over Ted’s chest, unbuttoning his ratty plaid shirt. Really, she should’ve cock-blocked him on principle, for dressing like he was still in college. But his chest was smooth, and slightly soft, and it was a change from the fake breasts she usually encountered when she unbuttoned shirts. Ted put his hands on her hips and pulled her closer. It was weird - he fit better against her, somehow, than girls did. Barney put it down to the fact that he was mostly flat and she was also mostly flat (to her dismay - she should really get around to having that boob job), and besides men and women had been evolving for years for the ease of doing it.
Anyway, it wasn’t as if Ted was the first guy she’d ever slept with. She’d lost her virginity to Kenny Levine at an after-Prom party in her senior year (she’d always sort of known that she wasn’t exactly Little Miss Heterosexual, but her distinct lack of enjoyment confirmed it), and she’d fooled around with some guys in college, before she met Shannon. And then there was Greg. But, by anyone’s reckoning, it had been a while. She wasn’t nervous - Barney Stinson never gets nervous about sex - but she was maybe a little anxious. She wondered if Ted was any good, if he’d get her to where she needed to be.
She took off her jacket and her pants and folded them carefully over the back of Ted’s couch. He looked at her funny, and she rolled her eyes. “I don’t want them to wrinkle,” she whispered. Ted just nodded and pulled her into his room. She was about to complain about the mess when he pushed her on the bed, and so she didn’t.
He pulled off her blouse, and his hands skidded over her skin, gently, softly, and it was so different from the last time she’d had sex with a guy, pushed up against a wall, his fingertips leaving bruises on her arms. She must’ve shuddered or something, because Ted stopped.
“You OK?” he asked her. He touched her hair, smoothing it behind her ear, and she nodded and smiled.
“Never better.” To prove it, she unzipped his fly, and, oh, wow, he was kind of hung. “Dude.”
Ted laughed, and kissed her. She heard the rustle of a condom, and then he slid inside her.
It was good. Sex with him was good. She liked it.
She liked it so much, in fact, that after they’d done it twice and Ted had fallen asleep, Barney got out of bed, got dressed, went home, and didn’t see him or speak to him for three weeks.
* * *
It wasn’t that she was avoiding him, exactly.
After all, she was a busy woman. She had that deal with the North Koreans that the Bush administration was just dying to tank, and she also had to deal with the fact that fucking Stevens had forgotten to file some forms in the correct color ink, so she’d had to sort that out. And it was about time that she reorganized her porn collection, anyway.
So she didn’t have the time to go to MacLaren’s. And when he called her, she never had the time to pick up or call him back. Same with Marshall and (on one occasion) Lily. Barney wasn’t even aware that Lily had her number, and she’d certainly never thought that she’d call her of her own volition, so she could only assume that Ted had gotten her to call. As if Barney’s phone wouldn’t recognize it.
But, other than that, she wasn’t avoiding him, really. Nothing had changed. And she was definitely good with it just being that one time they had sex, something that they’d laugh about in a few months.
After all, she of all people knew that sex didn’t mean anything. Even if you did kind of use your best bro for his penis. She didn’t even like penis. Supposedly.
On day twenty-two of her being thirty years old (she’d managed to pick up a girl the Friday before, but she was really drunk, and this didn’t mean that Barney’s days weren’t numbered), she went out for a run. When she came back, she found that the door was open. She paused - should she call the bomb squad? She’d always known that she’d be taken out, one day, but she didn’t think that they’d be dumb enough to leave the door open.
She shook herself. It’s probably nothing. She probably just forgot to lock it behind her, is all. She opened the door to see Ted leaning on her kitchen counter.
Oh, God, she’d have preferred a bomb.
“Hey,” he said.
She just stared for a few seconds. “How did you circumvent my security system?”
“You gave me your spare key.”
“Oh.” She paused. “What are you doing here?”
“Making sure you’re alive.”
“Well.” Barney laughed, nervously. “Here I am! You can leave… now…” She smiled, and Ted just stared at her, stonily. Barney slumped. “We’re going to have to have the talk, aren’t we?”
Ted nodded, and Barney shut the door and sat down on the sofa. She crossed her arms, like a kid who’s being told off. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Why haven’t you called me back?”
Barney looked up at Ted. He had his lecture face on. God, the guy was pretty much born forty years old. Barney considered telling him one of her prepared lies - I’ve been really busy, I lost my phone, so on and so forth. But she knew that Ted wouldn’t buy it, that he’d see right through her. Ted’s good at that. But she couldn’t tell him the truth, either. Not when she didn’t really know, either.
“I thought it’d be awkward,” she said, lamely.
Ted ran his fingers through his hair and looked at her. She gave him a hopeful smile.
“So, what, you’re not doing what you always do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Have sex with someone and then leave,” Ted said, looking at her with disdain, and suddenly Barney felt about two inches tall.
“No way,” she said, without hesitation. “You’re my bro. I wouldn’t do that.”
Ted just sighed. His voice was softer when he said, “Then why are you avoiding me?”
“I’ve never… I’ve never done this. Had sex with someone I…” She stopped. “You’re my wingman! It’s the most sacred of bonds! I don’t want to… You know what I’m saying?”
Ted blinked. “I do, actually.” He paused. “I should probably be more worried about that.”
Barney grinned. “Glad to know that some of my awesomeness is rubbing off.” Then she sobered. “So?”
“I don’t want to lose you, either.” He smiled at her. She stood up, and Ted gave her a hug. She was sweaty and gross, but he still hugged her tightly, too tightly for a bro hug. She wrapped her arms around him, and her nose pressed against his shoulder. He smelled kind of nice, even if by all rights he shouldn’t. He smelled like detergent and cheap deodorant and hair gel, but it all came together, somehow. They held onto each other for too long, and not even Barney hitting Ted on the back when they pulled away could hide that.
“Wanna go to the bar?” Ted asked.
“Can I shower first?” Barney replied. “I reek.”
Ted laughed. “OK. I’ll meet you there.”
Barney nodded as Ted turned to leave. “Hey, Ted?”
He turned back to face her. “Yeah?”
“My key is not to be used lightly. This is strike one.”
Ted nodded. “Duly noted.”
He left, and Barney smiled to herself and went to the bathroom. She took off her running gear and stepped in the shower. As the water ran over her, she sighed and leant her head against the tiles.
And she only thought about Ted a little when she played with the showerhead. Really.
* * *
Things went back to normal. Either Marshall and Lily didn’t know, or Ted ordered them not to mention it. Barney was OK with either, because then it was sort of like it didn’t even happen, except for the fact that when she looked over at him, she felt all weird inside. And occasionally she caught him looking back at her, too.
And a few months later Marshall and Lily got engaged, and Ted started talking about getting married, and Barney knew that she had a lucky break. It could’ve been worse. He could have tried to trap her in a relationship. He could’ve gotten really hurt. She wasn't the kind of girl you can settle down with. She wasn't the girl he needed.
Then Ted looked across the bar and saw another girl who wasn't right for him, and that’s where it all began.
Link to the next part
Lily, naturally, was the first one to see her. “Well, hey, grandma!” she said, in that stupid chipper tone of hers. “Where’s the walker?”
Barney would usually have a witty comeback - she and Lily had bitchy banter down to a fine art by now - but she just sat down next to Ted and told her to shut up.
“Happy birthday,” Marshall said, cautiously.
“What’s it like being 30?” Ted asked, with a facetious smile on his face. She glared at them both.
“I was born at exactly 10:47 PM. It is currently…” She looked at her watch. “8:05 PM. By my reckoning, I’m still twenty-nine for another two hours and forty-two minutes. Anyone who disagrees with me will die a slow and painful death. Got it?”
There was a long and uneasy silence.
Ted started whistling “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”, and Barney went to get another drink.
* * *
10:15 PM. God damn it. Just over half an hour left.
Marshall and Lily had made an excuse to leave about twenty minutes before, and Barney totally saw Ted give them a look that said, “How dare you leave me here with this dried-up old hag?”
Or something. Barney was the wrong side of drunk, old, and not-laid. Trust today to be the day where there are no drunken bicurious coeds or butch lesbians around.
Ted came back to the table with a pitcher of beer. “Here you go, buddy.”
Barney nodded and filled up a tankard. “Birthdays suck.”
“Come on. It’s not so bad.”
Barney looked up at Ted. “Dude. I’m thirty. I am thirty years old. Do you even know what that DOES to a woman?”
“It’s not like you’re going to get old overnight.” Ted sounded slightly condescending, and Barney didn’t like it in the least.
“Trust me, Ted. As a keen observer of the female body, I know what happens when a girl turns thirty. Her skin loses its elasticity. Everything - her boobs, her ass, her face - EVERYTHING, Ted - starts to sag.” Barney leans over the table. “Have you ever seen a thirty-year-old woman up close, bro?”
“You’re overreacting. Besides, what about cougars?”
“Ah, see. After about forty-five or so, it turns a corner. The value of the woman’s sexual experience and appetite starts to outweigh the repulsiveness of her slowly dying body.”
“Do you even listen to yourself when you talk?”
“Plus, PLUS.” Barney somehow managed to lose her balance while sitting down, which was a feat in itself. It took her a few seconds to recover. “By then, they’ll have divorced their rich husbands, and can afford really awesome plastic surgeons.”
Ted just gave her a look.
Barney took another sip of her beer.
“Listen,” Ted said, taking a deep breath. “It’s not the end of the world. You’re still going to be attractive, no matter how old you are.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re twenty-seven. You’ve still got three years of boning women left in you. If you finally listen to me and stop being lame, that is.” She paused. “Only, no, you have way more than three years, because girls will totally sleep with older dudes! God, I wish I was a guy.”
“Well, I think you’re going to be fine.”
Barney looked down at her chest. “I should get a boob job.”
Ted sighed, exasperatedly. “You don’t need a boob job. You look great the way you are. You’re gorgeous.”
Barney paused. “We should totally go to a gay bar. I’d get laid for sure.”
Ted rolled his eyes. “It’s your birthday.”
* * *
It was about one in the morning when Barney and Ted stumbled out of the club.
“How in the HELL did that not work?” Barney asked, mournfully. She definitely saw Ted rolling his eyes. “What?”
“I think we’d better get you home.” Ted put his arm around her, propping her up. Barney could feel his grip through the fabric of her sleeve, and even though he was warm and it wasn’t a cold night, not for New York in the springtime, she still shivered.
“You’re no fun,” Barney said, as Ted hailed a cab. “It’s my freakin’ birthday.”
“Yeah, well. You don’t even like birthdays.”
“I like other peoples’ birthdays. It’s just mine that sucks.” She sighed. “There’s always hookers. They don’t care if I’m over thirty, as long as I pay them.”
“Barney, I’m telling you, you don’t need hookers. You’re still -“
“Yeah, yeah, still attractive. I heard you the first ten million times.” Then it hit her, and she started to laugh.
“What?” Ted snapped.
Barney slung an arm around his neck. “You think I’m hot.”
Ted chuckled, unable to keep the nerves out of his voice. “I think you’re drunk.”
She grinned. “You totally were hitting on me. When we met."
Ted shook his head and tried to hail a passing cab, but it drove past them.
“You wanted to sleep with me,” she continued, in a singsong voice. “But I wouldn’t, because I’m gay.”
“Yeah,” Ted said, with a sort of heavy sigh. “You’re gay.”
Barney laughed, even when she saw Ted’s brow furrow, and she suspected that maybe she shouldn’t laugh anymore.
“Hey, dude.” Barney tried to regain some composure. “It’s OK if you want to sleep with me. I’ve wanted to sleep with Lil since the day I met her, and it worked out.”
“You and Lily hate each other.”
Barney shrugged. “She wants me. Bad.”
Ted laughed and shook his head. “You are ridiculous.”
Barney bit her lip and looked at Ted. She’d always suspected that he wanted her. And he was good-looking. Objectively. If his hair was a little less prissy. And shorter than hers (seriously, he had so much hair, she was sort of afraid what it would look like without gel). And, yeah, OK, he was a guy, but that could work out for her. It was simple biology - he’d have to do all of the work. And, to be honest, Barney wasn’t in the mood to pick up some drunk chick and have to sweat making sure both of them had a good time. It was a logical decision.
So she kissed him.
She remembers a lot of things about it: the fact that it took Ted a while to come around to the fact that he was being kissed and start to react; how, when he did start to kiss her back, he turned out to be surprisingly good at it; that he cupped her face and pulled her closer and, swear to God, she felt her heart flutter (which is stupid and sentimental and Barney would never, ever admit it in public, but it’s what happened).
And then he pulled away and she didn’t open her eyes for a few seconds. And then he smiled at her, and she swallowed hard.
“So,” she said. “We going back to your place or what?”
* * *
“You’re sure you want to do this?” Ted asked, for what seemed like the hundredth time, as they stumbled into his apartment. Barney rolled her eyes.
“Jesus Christ, Ted. Have I taught you nothing? If a girl wants to have sex with you, you don’t give her an out, you hit that!”
Ted chuckled and kissed her lightly. They both heard a moan come from Marshall and Lily’s room. Ted pulled back and put a finger on his lips. Barney nodded. Waking them up now would probably lead to way more awkwardness than she was prepared to deal with.
Barney ran her hands over Ted’s chest, unbuttoning his ratty plaid shirt. Really, she should’ve cock-blocked him on principle, for dressing like he was still in college. But his chest was smooth, and slightly soft, and it was a change from the fake breasts she usually encountered when she unbuttoned shirts. Ted put his hands on her hips and pulled her closer. It was weird - he fit better against her, somehow, than girls did. Barney put it down to the fact that he was mostly flat and she was also mostly flat (to her dismay - she should really get around to having that boob job), and besides men and women had been evolving for years for the ease of doing it.
Anyway, it wasn’t as if Ted was the first guy she’d ever slept with. She’d lost her virginity to Kenny Levine at an after-Prom party in her senior year (she’d always sort of known that she wasn’t exactly Little Miss Heterosexual, but her distinct lack of enjoyment confirmed it), and she’d fooled around with some guys in college, before she met Shannon. And then there was Greg. But, by anyone’s reckoning, it had been a while. She wasn’t nervous - Barney Stinson never gets nervous about sex - but she was maybe a little anxious. She wondered if Ted was any good, if he’d get her to where she needed to be.
She took off her jacket and her pants and folded them carefully over the back of Ted’s couch. He looked at her funny, and she rolled her eyes. “I don’t want them to wrinkle,” she whispered. Ted just nodded and pulled her into his room. She was about to complain about the mess when he pushed her on the bed, and so she didn’t.
He pulled off her blouse, and his hands skidded over her skin, gently, softly, and it was so different from the last time she’d had sex with a guy, pushed up against a wall, his fingertips leaving bruises on her arms. She must’ve shuddered or something, because Ted stopped.
“You OK?” he asked her. He touched her hair, smoothing it behind her ear, and she nodded and smiled.
“Never better.” To prove it, she unzipped his fly, and, oh, wow, he was kind of hung. “Dude.”
Ted laughed, and kissed her. She heard the rustle of a condom, and then he slid inside her.
It was good. Sex with him was good. She liked it.
She liked it so much, in fact, that after they’d done it twice and Ted had fallen asleep, Barney got out of bed, got dressed, went home, and didn’t see him or speak to him for three weeks.
* * *
It wasn’t that she was avoiding him, exactly.
After all, she was a busy woman. She had that deal with the North Koreans that the Bush administration was just dying to tank, and she also had to deal with the fact that fucking Stevens had forgotten to file some forms in the correct color ink, so she’d had to sort that out. And it was about time that she reorganized her porn collection, anyway.
So she didn’t have the time to go to MacLaren’s. And when he called her, she never had the time to pick up or call him back. Same with Marshall and (on one occasion) Lily. Barney wasn’t even aware that Lily had her number, and she’d certainly never thought that she’d call her of her own volition, so she could only assume that Ted had gotten her to call. As if Barney’s phone wouldn’t recognize it.
But, other than that, she wasn’t avoiding him, really. Nothing had changed. And she was definitely good with it just being that one time they had sex, something that they’d laugh about in a few months.
After all, she of all people knew that sex didn’t mean anything. Even if you did kind of use your best bro for his penis. She didn’t even like penis. Supposedly.
On day twenty-two of her being thirty years old (she’d managed to pick up a girl the Friday before, but she was really drunk, and this didn’t mean that Barney’s days weren’t numbered), she went out for a run. When she came back, she found that the door was open. She paused - should she call the bomb squad? She’d always known that she’d be taken out, one day, but she didn’t think that they’d be dumb enough to leave the door open.
She shook herself. It’s probably nothing. She probably just forgot to lock it behind her, is all. She opened the door to see Ted leaning on her kitchen counter.
Oh, God, she’d have preferred a bomb.
“Hey,” he said.
She just stared for a few seconds. “How did you circumvent my security system?”
“You gave me your spare key.”
“Oh.” She paused. “What are you doing here?”
“Making sure you’re alive.”
“Well.” Barney laughed, nervously. “Here I am! You can leave… now…” She smiled, and Ted just stared at her, stonily. Barney slumped. “We’re going to have to have the talk, aren’t we?”
Ted nodded, and Barney shut the door and sat down on the sofa. She crossed her arms, like a kid who’s being told off. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Why haven’t you called me back?”
Barney looked up at Ted. He had his lecture face on. God, the guy was pretty much born forty years old. Barney considered telling him one of her prepared lies - I’ve been really busy, I lost my phone, so on and so forth. But she knew that Ted wouldn’t buy it, that he’d see right through her. Ted’s good at that. But she couldn’t tell him the truth, either. Not when she didn’t really know, either.
“I thought it’d be awkward,” she said, lamely.
Ted ran his fingers through his hair and looked at her. She gave him a hopeful smile.
“So, what, you’re not doing what you always do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Have sex with someone and then leave,” Ted said, looking at her with disdain, and suddenly Barney felt about two inches tall.
“No way,” she said, without hesitation. “You’re my bro. I wouldn’t do that.”
Ted just sighed. His voice was softer when he said, “Then why are you avoiding me?”
“I’ve never… I’ve never done this. Had sex with someone I…” She stopped. “You’re my wingman! It’s the most sacred of bonds! I don’t want to… You know what I’m saying?”
Ted blinked. “I do, actually.” He paused. “I should probably be more worried about that.”
Barney grinned. “Glad to know that some of my awesomeness is rubbing off.” Then she sobered. “So?”
“I don’t want to lose you, either.” He smiled at her. She stood up, and Ted gave her a hug. She was sweaty and gross, but he still hugged her tightly, too tightly for a bro hug. She wrapped her arms around him, and her nose pressed against his shoulder. He smelled kind of nice, even if by all rights he shouldn’t. He smelled like detergent and cheap deodorant and hair gel, but it all came together, somehow. They held onto each other for too long, and not even Barney hitting Ted on the back when they pulled away could hide that.
“Wanna go to the bar?” Ted asked.
“Can I shower first?” Barney replied. “I reek.”
Ted laughed. “OK. I’ll meet you there.”
Barney nodded as Ted turned to leave. “Hey, Ted?”
He turned back to face her. “Yeah?”
“My key is not to be used lightly. This is strike one.”
Ted nodded. “Duly noted.”
He left, and Barney smiled to herself and went to the bathroom. She took off her running gear and stepped in the shower. As the water ran over her, she sighed and leant her head against the tiles.
And she only thought about Ted a little when she played with the showerhead. Really.
* * *
Things went back to normal. Either Marshall and Lily didn’t know, or Ted ordered them not to mention it. Barney was OK with either, because then it was sort of like it didn’t even happen, except for the fact that when she looked over at him, she felt all weird inside. And occasionally she caught him looking back at her, too.
And a few months later Marshall and Lily got engaged, and Ted started talking about getting married, and Barney knew that she had a lucky break. It could’ve been worse. He could have tried to trap her in a relationship. He could’ve gotten really hurt. She wasn't the kind of girl you can settle down with. She wasn't the girl he needed.
Then Ted looked across the bar and saw another girl who wasn't right for him, and that’s where it all began.
Link to the next part