Fic: Which Nobody Can Deny (2/4)
Title: Which Nobody Can Deny (2/4)
Previously On: Verse Masterlist
Fandom: HIMYM
Pairing: girl!Barney/Ted, pre-girl!Barney/Robin, some girl!Barney/Lily
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4830 in this part, 7610 in total
Warning: language, sexual content, slight dub-con, genderfuck
Summary: Barney has no idea why she hates Robin so much. Set in season one.
This was just ridiculous.
Barney had been fine setting Ted up with Robin, back when she was the girl in the green sweater who looked totally dirty (and not a little gay, if Barney’s spider-senses were still intact). She didn’t even mind so much when she actually went for Ted. And when Ted returned, and re-returned, to get her? Well. Barney didn’t approve, exactly, but it was kind of funny.
But when he hosted three totally lame parties, AND passed up the chance to score with the hot chick that no one knows?
“I’m not sure I like her.”
That was a lie. Barney was completely, absolutely certain that she did not like Robin Scherbatsky, who was completely ruining Ted for other women.
Not that Barney could really blame him. After all, Robin was as hot as hell. There was no denying that. And she was kinda cool, for a chick. But no woman was worth making that big of an ass out of yourself.
And, to make matters worse, she was totally taking over the group, with her stupid job and her stupid (not all that impressive) breasts. It left a bitter taste in Barney’s mouth.
“You’re being paranoid,” Marshall said, when she voiced her concerns. “Robin’s cool.”
“See! That’s just proof!”
“She’s not so bad,” said Lily. Of course she’d think so. “It’ll be nice to have another girl around.”
“Do I not count as a woman, then?”
“Given that you once gave me a lecture on exactly why you are not a chick, I’d say no.”
Barney leaned back and scoffed. “There’s a difference between being a chick and being a woman.”
“Well, Ted likes her, so you’re going to have to get used to her,” Marshall said, taking a pull of his beer.
Barney leaned back and crossed her arms. She didn’t want to get used to Robin. She wanted things to go back to the way they were. And she was fairly sure she knew how to do it.
* * *
“Oh, come on!” Barney said, arm around Ted’s neck, as they wandered through the streets of Philadelphia, like Bruce Springsteen. “You have to admit that that was pretty damn legendary.”
“We just totally licked the Liberty Bell,” said Ted, with this goofy drunken grin on his face. They’d decided to hit the Philadelphia bars before returning to New York, but they were both way too drunk to drive. Maybe they’d get a hotel room. Maybe they’d just pass out on a park bench. Who knew? This, Barney thought, was the beauty of legendary adventures - you never knew what was going to happen or where you were going to end up.
“Way better than the same old bar?”
Ted nodded. “Kinda wish that…”
“If you end that sentence with ‘Robin was here’, I will be forced to punch you.”
“I was going to say Marshall.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Although, now that you mention it -“
“May I remind you that if I do end up punching you, you can’t hit me back?”
Ted just looked at her. “Are you really twisting the laws of chivalry to your own purposes?”
Barney just shrugged and laughed, squeezing her arm a little tighter around Ted’s shoulders. She noticed, again, how nice he smelled. Sure, it was kind of a girly smell, from all of the crap in his hair, and that would be a valid thing to make fun of him for. But it was sort of laced with Old Spice and detergent, and some weird of edge of masculinity that usually didn’t do much for her, but maybe his girliness balanced it out, Barney wasn’t sure, because it worked now.
Ted waved his hand in front of her face, and she blinked. “What?”
Ted laughed. “You were staring at me.”
“Pft! Was not.” She chuckled, nervously.
Ted ran his tongue over his teeth, experimentally. “Wow, I still taste like pennies.”
“Dude, that’s freedom. Don’t you know anything?”
Ted paused, as if he was considering it. “Nope, definitely pennies.”
Barney considered Ted’s lips. “You want a second opinion or something?” she asked, in a way that was kind of joking.
Ted stopped smiling.
“I meant making out,” Barney clarified.
“Um… that’d probably be a bad idea.”
Barney swallowed and attempted to pull away, but then she rediscovered how inconvenient gravity could be at times, so she had to lean back on him. “Yeah. Probably.”
“Wouldn’t want to make things weird.”
“Totally not.”
Barney kind of wanted to know if Ted did taste like pennies. If he still tasted the way she remembered, like beer and breath mints and something else she couldn’t name, something that was just… Ted.
She shook her head. They both needed to get laid.
* * *
Neither of them actually ended up laid. Barney insisted that she had gotten close: if the girl hadn't happened to be a militant Christian, she totally would've been a lesbian. Ted said that "almost" didn't count for anything, but that was because he was a girl.
So the two of them ended up booking a hotel.
“With two beds,” Ted told the receptionist, pointedly.
“Or with one bed and one of those pull-out couches,” Barney said.
“You want to sleep on a pull-out couch?”
“Of course not. You’re sleeping on the pull-out couch.”
The receptionist chuckled. “Trouble in paradise?”
“Oh, no,” Ted said, quickly. “We’re not together.” Barney couldn’t help but feel a little indignant, but of course she didn’t say anything. The receptionist raised an eyebrow and swiped Barney’s credit card.
“OK, then,” she said. “Enjoy your stay.”
Now, if they lived in some crappy sitcom, there’d end up being some sort of convention in town, and there’d only be a room with a double bed available. Then she and Ted would have to awkwardly place the pillows between them. And then they’d probably have sex (given that, as almost all of Barney’s fantasies were, this sitcom was X-rated). But life is woefully short on crappy sitcom conventions, so the room was exactly as they had specified, with two beds.
Barney was forced to strip down to her blouse and panties to go to sleep, and Ted ended up in just his boxers. But whereas Barney felt obligated to ogle Ted when he wasn’t looking, Ted never so much as glanced her way. It was oddly unsatisfactory.
Ted feel on the bed, mumbling “G’night” at her. Barney sat down on the bed and got under the covers, turning her back to him. She tried to sleep, but the whole night she kept wondering what would happen if she got up and got under Ted’s sheets. And, for the first time in a long time, she was afraid of what sex might mean.
The next morning, she and Ted left the city of brotherly love, and Barney didn’t think she’d ever set foot there again.
***
It was almost illogical, how much Barney didn’t like Robin.
Looking at the facts, it made no sense. Robin was cool enough to take up her ridiculous dares on live television. And then, a few weeks later, she got them into Okay, which was only the hardest club in Manhattan to get into at the time. She was clearly superior to most specimens of her gender.
But there was just something about her, particularly when she was with Ted, that made Barney want to knock out some of her shiny white reporter teeth.
Barney had never been one for introspection, but even she knew that something was up.
“We’re wearing the same thing. Oh, wait, that’s just my shirt reflected in your shirt.” Lily said, looking her up and down as she enters Ted and Marshall’s apartment.
“Ha. First of all, this is a dress, and second of all, one of the 24 similarities between women and fish - they’re both attracted to shiny things.”
“That’s a dress? I just figured that you forgot your pants. I wasn’t going to say anything, because it’s funny when you make an ass out of yourself.”
“Bite me, Lily. No, really. Bite me. You’ll like it.”
“Will you two stop it?” Marshall said, from the kitchen. “I’m arranging the gouda.”
“And you need absolute silence for this massively important task?” Barney asked, sarcastically.
The truth is, it did feel kind of weird, not wearing pants. She didn’t even have any skirts in her wardrobe. But clubbing was one of the few times when she abandoned her suits, the whole suit, and nothing but the suits policy. And the look on Ted’s face when he saw it was totally worth it.
“My eyes are up here, Mosby,” she said, with a sardonic smirk. But then he actually did stop staring at her legs, and somehow it was less fun. And then when he saw Robin (who was wearing way too many clothes for a hot, sweaty club), his eyes lit up, and Barney balled her hands into fists so tight that her fingernails threatened to break skin.
So Barney took the only feasible course of action available to her. She went in, danced, and waited for some guy to grind up against her. He was pretty hot, so she took him home.
She didn’t like it as much as she’d liked being with Ted.
* * *
“What’s with the recent male streak?” Robin asked her, a few weeks later at the bar.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” replied Barney, casually.
“For the past few weeks, you’ve kind of been going home with a lot of guys,” Robin said. “I thought you were a lesbian.”
“So, what, I’m not allowed to experiment?” Barney said, defensively. “Only heterosexuals can try something different?”
“No, I’m not saying that. It’s just that you’ve shown no interest in guys -“
“So now you know me? Is that it?”
Robin shook her head. “It’s not like that. Slow your roll.”
“You slow your own damn roll.”
“I was just asking.”
“Well, I don’t need your approval, Scherbatsky. I can sleep with whoever I want.”
Robin shrugged and took a sip of her beer. “Have fun with that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Robin just gave her a look. Barney sighed and rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Robin. There’s no reason for it. I just felt like mixing it up a bit, is all.”
“Cool.”
“Don’t you ever feel like trying it with a woman?” She didn’t know why she asked - God, they were getting perilously close to bonding. “Or have you?”
“No,” Robin replied, sharply. “I’m not into girls. Nope.”
Barney raised an eyebrow, but before she could ask anything else, Marshall and Lily came back to the booth, and that was the end of their little tête à tête.
Barney played it casual, her heterosexual streak, even when Marshall and Lily noticed that she hadn’t picked up a woman in a while. But it wasn’t casual.
It was easy, sure. With girls, she’d always been swimming against the current. They were so reluctant to give it up, especially to another woman. With guys, all she had to do was show up looking hot, bat her eyelashes, and laugh at their jokes, and they were yours. It was simple, unchallenging. Boring. And none of them could make her feel the way she had with Ted. That severely pissed her off.
At first, she had gravitated towards the Ted types - dark hair, scruffy clothes (although not as scruffy as Ted - seriously, the guy needed to learn how to dress himself, stat), awe-struck gaze. They varied. Some of them were awful, whispered poetry and apologetic fumbles. One, quite memorably, had ejaculated all over himself in the middle of foreplay, like some horny teenager. Others were all right. Attentive enough, anyway. But then they’d go on about wanting to “hold” her, and she was out of there quicker than you could mime retching. Then she’d realized just what she was doing, and went for the complete opposite. Jerks. The guys with the lame pick-up lines and the perfect teeth. They all sucked, and not in the good way. They all acted like they were doing her a favor by sleeping with her, when they couldn’t even make her come. One guy had tried to stick his cock in her mouth, and she’d told him that if he even tried it, she’d bite it off. (Seriously, WHO came up with that?)
She was pretty much running out of patience with the whole thing by the time Ted caught on.
She was leaning on the bar, briefly considering just going for the sexy redhead in the corner who’s totally reading AfterEllen on her laptop, but then discarding the notion because when she latches onto something, she doesn’t let go, dammit, no matter how unpleasant it may be, when Ted came up to her. “Hey,” he said, and a smile slid on her face way too easily.
“Hey. What’s up?”
“You’ve been picking up a lot of guys lately.”
“Wow, don’t ease in there, Mosby. Go right for the throat!”
Ted gave her one of those annoyingly Mosby looks, like he could see to the very heart of her. “Why?”
“Ted, you should know better than anybody that I’m not one of those phallus-phobic lesbians.” Barney tried to look casual as she sipped her drink, but her eyes drifted over to Ted of their own accord.
“Is this because of us?” he asked, in a quiet voice.
“What? No way, dude. Barely even remember it.” That was a lie - she remembered every second of it. And she hadn’t been able to equal it with any of the bozos she’d picked up.
Was it possible that Ted Mosby was just a god among men? Ugh, no way. He owned sweatpants from Target. He had no right to be as good of a lover as he was.
So it had to be something else.
“Barney, you’re my friend. I want to know if something’s up with you.”
Barney looked over at him. “Best friend,” she said, in a small voice.
“Marshall’s my best friend,” Ted told her, for about the millionth time. Barney rolled her eyes.
“I totally let you sleep with me that one time. If that doesn’t qualify me for best friend status, what will?”
Ted laughed, and Barney couldn’t help but giggle along. “If I recall correctly,” Ted said, teasingly, “you kissed me.”
“You gave me the signal.”
“There’s no such thing!”
“And you totally were trying to pick me up that first night.”
“How many times do I have to tell you…” He shook his head. “So, you’re OK?”
She smiled at him. “Never better.”
He flashed her a grin and returned to the bar, carrying the beer. She watched him go, as something slowly twisted in her gut, as a hollow feeling in her heart suddenly struck her and then dissipated as quickly as it came.
She went home with the redhead.
* * *
Barney wasn’t jealous of Victoria. Much.
Not in the same way that she was with Robin, anyway. Robin was Ted’s dream girl - smart, funny, beautiful. Victoria was cool, and all, but Barney knew that Ted would drop her like a hot potato if he ever got a shot with Robin. And besides, she had no reason to be jealous of Ted’s girlfriend. Robin, she could hate, because of the way she had invaded the group. But if she hated Victoria, it would be based purely on the fact that she was with Ted. And why would she be jealous of that?
Still, she didn’t think they’d be buddies anytime soon. And she didn’t really like to see her and Ted together. For some reason.
“You know, you can look in the mirror and see who it is,” Robin said, after Barney tried hitting on her accidentally one night. Marshall and Lily were doing some lame couple’s trip, and Ted was out with Victoria.
“Oh,” Barney said. “Thanks.” And then she went to hit on someone else.
It wasn’t long before she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see Robin. She wanted to say “what?”, but managed to downgrade it to an icy “Yes?”
“My friend’s making out with some random guy.”
Barney looked over at the table. “Good for her.”
She rolled her eyes. “And she’s not exactly great company at this very second.”
“I can’t imagine she would be.”
“So I was wondering if I could drink with you.” Robin sounded like she was pushing her dentist appointment forward a few days - something necessary but nonetheless unpleasant.
“There I can’t help you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m entertaining this young…” Barney turned around. “Damn it, Robin, you scared her away!”
Robin sat down next to Barney. “Jeez, what did I ever do to make you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you,” Barney replied, unconvincingly. Robin gave her a skeptical look. “Why would I hate you? You’re beautiful and smart and funny and awesome and Ted totally loves you.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of that last part.
Robin looked down in her drink. “You really think that?”
“Duh. He’s only been mooning after you since the moment he met you. It’s like, ‘Robin this’ and ‘Robin that’ and ‘Barney, what do you think of Robin’?”
“But then he hooked up with Victoria.”
“Well, technically they haven’t hooked up. I swear, Ted’s turning into a total woman.” Actually, that’s not a bad thought.
“So he really…” Robin stops again, and Barney looks up at her. She looks confused. Sad. It’s sort of the same expression that she’d seen on her own face a lot, whenever she looked in the mirror.
“You like Ted,” Barney said, the truth dawning on her. Robin didn’t say anything. Barney looked down into her scotch.
This was awful. If something happened to Ted and Victoria, Robin would be all over Ted. Then they’d get married and have babies (because, despite what Robin said, Barney knew that all chicks secretly wanted to find Mr. Right), and where would that leave Barney? Best man.
Short of a wingman, she told herself. Loss of a bro. Yeah.
Barney lifted her eyes. She knew that, if Ted and Victoria didn’t make it, Robin would get what she wanted. But there isn’t any hatred when she looks at her.
“Ted’s… he’s a good guy. Don’t tell him I said that.”
Robin smirked. “Do you like him?”
“What? No! No way. Nuh-uh.” Barney looked around the room, aware of her fluster. “No.”
Robin simply nodded, indulgently. “Wow, look at us. Pathetic, huh?”
Barney scoffed. “You, maybe. Nothing can hamper my awesome.”
And then Robin laughed, really laughed. It was the first time she’d ever laughed at something Barney had said, without contempt or derision. It wasn’t a bad sound.
Barney always knew her dislike of Robin was irrational.
“Hey, do you want to go hang out at my place? We could play Battleship.” Robin’s voice was light, joking. Barney glanced over at her.
“Um, I don’t think that would be the best idea.”
“What?”
“Well, with Ted, and everything. I mean, you’re smoking, but I’d have to call him first to check if it’s OK.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Battleship.”
Robin looked at her, puzzled. “You need to ask Ted’s permission to play a board game?”
“No, of course not. I need his permission to -“ Wait, could she be talking about actual Battleship? “Wait, you mean actual Battleship?”
“Yeah. As in ‘You sunk my’. Heard of it?”
Oh. Barney stood up. “Of course I’ve heard of it. Of course, I cheat.”
“Me, too.”
They talk strategy all the way to Robin’s apartment. They don’t have sex, and they don’t do much in the way of female bonding either, either of the fun handcuffs variety or the excruciating cookie dough ice cream variety. Barney got the feeling that Robin disliked sharing things the same way she did.
It was fun.
***
Here’s what happened with Shannon:
They met in college. Shannon was Barney’s first girlfriend, the first woman she ever made love to. And it was great. Shannon was cute and fun and smart. She told Barney about the atrocities of the diamond trade and about genocide and about civil wars in countries that had names that Barney couldn’t pronounce. And, more importantly, Shannon loved Barney. Shannon made her feel beautiful, made her feel like it was OK to have bee-sting breasts and gangly legs. She’d convinced Barney to keep her hair long, even when she considered cutting it. Shannon was amazing and perfect and Barney would stay with her for as long as she would have her. Barney was completely smitten.
They left college, moved in together, started working at a café. One day, just before they were due to leave for Nicaragua, a man in a suit came in and seemed way too pleased to get coffee from two lesbians, but Barney didn’t think anything of it. After all, he wasn’t the first guy to come into the café and make perverted comments.
But then Shannon ditched her before they left. Barney told Shannon she loved her; Shannon told her that her new boyfriend had a boat.
Barney tried to go back to her life. She kept making coffee, serving people, trying to smile. But then one day, right at the end of the day when she was going to go home, Jewel came on the radio and Barney just broke down crying.
The guy, the same guy, Greg, he sidled up next to her and asked her what was wrong. She should’ve been less naïve, more careful. But she was young, and stupid, and trusting, so she ended up telling him everything. He was sympathetic, and he listened to her, and she didn’t even notice he was touching her until his hand was almost at the crease between her leg and her hip.
He asked her if she wanted to feel better. She nodded.
He took her in a back room. It was dark, cramped. She was about to say something, ask if maybe they could go somewhere else, when his mouth was on hers. The pressure was brutal, and Barney recognizes what it was now - he didn’t want to give her a chance to change her mind.
He pushed up her skirt (the last time she wore a skirt), unzipped his pants. He fingered her, and then he fucked her. When he was done, he left. She stood there for a while, and then went and locked up. It was only when she got home that she started sobbing.
Greg came in a day or two later, with Shannon on his arm. He laughed at her, and when he walked out, he snaked an arm around Shannon’s waist, and then looked back and winked.
The suits were a method of control, she was told, in her last psych evaluation for Altrucell. Dr. Grossbard told her that she had taken on the persona of her attacker in order to keep herself from being victimized. She told him that was a load of crap. She wasn’t a victim. She’d said yes. Besides, everything else she told him was a lie, so that probably skewed the results.
She didn’t sleep with another man for seven years, give or take. It wasn’t that she couldn’t, she just didn’t want to. She was a lesbian, after all. Greg was evidence enough that straying out of that was a mistake. And it was kind of hard to look at a guy that way, at first. But she got over it. The thing with Ted was just good timing.
She didn’t tell the group about what had happened until Lily had found the tape of her begging Shannon to take her back. She’d sat down at the bar and told them the story in a flat monotone. And then she’d left.
Ted was the one who followed her out of MacLaren’s. “Barney, wait.”
Barney stopped, and turned on her heel. “Leave me alone, Mosby.”
“Look, I’m… what happened to you was terrible.”
“Gee, ya think?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Wasn’t your fault.”
“Damn it, Barney! I’m trying to be a good friend here.”
Barney sighed. “Look. It happened eight years ago. I’m over it!”
“Barney…”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Ted. Can’t you respect that?”
Ted took a deep breath. “Fine.” He didn’t look very happy about it. “But…”
Barney was turning to leave. She stopped. “What?”
“Was I the first? After what happened? Was I the first guy you slept with?”
Barney just looked at him. “Good night, Ted. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Barney walked home, shoulders hunched, hands in her jacket. A giggling drunken couple walked past her, and Barney considered pushing their stupid happy faces in the New York gutter water.
She’d be fine tomorrow.
***
As Barney predicted, the Robin mess started up again. But this time it was harder to be angry at Robin, which was annoying. So Barney just thanked God that Robin was mad at Ted. She knew that they’d sort it out, of course they would. But it wouldn’t be for a while.
“Barney, why aren’t you wearing a dress?” Robin asked, when she and Lily had both changed (the second time) for Prom.
“Barney doesn’t need to slut up - she already is one,” Lily said, and Barney stuck her tongue out at her.
She didn’t see Lily again until later that night. Barney was sitting in the police station for the larceny of the stupid turtle costume and, as Lily explained, the group had decided that, since it had been Lily’s idea to go to the Prom, it was Lily’s responsibility to post bail for her.
“Thanks,” Barney said, reluctantly.
“You’re welcome,” Lily replied, equally reluctantly.
Out of fairness, Barney paid for the cab. Lily straightened her skirt as she got in. “You look totally hot,” Barney told her.
“I’m going to pretend that’s a compliment.” Lily sighed, and looked out the window. Barney was considering asking if something was wrong when Lily blurted, “What’s sex with women like?”
“Wet. Why?”
“I’m just curious.”
Barney grinned. “You know, it’d probably be easier to show you by example.”
Lily paused, then shook her head. “Really, it’s nothing.”
Barney looked at her. What brought this on? Were she and Marshall having problems? Was she getting cold feet or something? The thought was surprisingly unpleasant.
“It’s just…” Lily said, with a sigh. “You can’t turn this into some lewd joke.”
“Would I?” Lily just glared at her. “OK, I would. But I won’t. Probably.”
Lily looked hesitant, but she continued, “There’s so many things I never got to do, you know? Because I was with Marshall. Like experiment.” She laughed, bitterly. “I don’t even know if I’m really attracted to women, or if I’m just trying to be edgy. How can you when you’ve never had any experience with them?”
Barney looked down. “I always knew I was more into girls than guys.”
“But did you always know you felt at least something for men?”
“Well, it’s completely different. Girls are supposed to like guys. And I didn’t really enjoy any of my earlier experiences. Or many of the later ones, actually.”
“Then you’re not really attracted to guys?”
“No!” Barney said, too quickly. She cleared her throat. “I… I have to be.”
Lily gave her a weird look, and Barney practically sighed with relief when she didn’t push the issue.
Of course, then Lily kissed her, and all of Barney’s senses went into overdrive.
Her lips were soft and sweet, just like she’d always thought. She didn’t open her lips, and Barney didn’t try to slip her any tongue, but it still lasted way too long for a friend kiss. Barney pulled away first, to her surprise as much as Lily’s.
“Marshall’s a really great guy.” There was something definitively not-right about Lily freaking out like that. Marshall and Lily were supposed to be together.
Oh, God, Barney felt like choking herself the second she thought that. It was true, though.
“I- I know. You’re… not going to tell him, are you?”
“No,” Barney said, simply, and Lily looked relieved. Barney laughed. “I can keep a secret. I mean, I totally never told anyone about the time me and Ted did it.”
“You had sex with TED?”
Crap.
***
“I’m gonna make it rain.”
Barney went along with the plan. She wanted to believe Ted when he said this would be his last try with Robin. And, besides, what were the chances that he’d actually make it rain?
So Barney hooked him up with Penelope. She watched him dance around, and it was pretty funny, until she realized that Ted would never - ever - have done anything like this for her, his (best) friend.
And then she felt sick.
But it wouldn’t work, anyway. It was just a stupid gesture. He couldn’t make it rain.
He couldn’t. Right?
Previously On: Verse Masterlist
Fandom: HIMYM
Pairing: girl!Barney/Ted, pre-girl!Barney/Robin, some girl!Barney/Lily
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 4830 in this part, 7610 in total
Warning: language, sexual content, slight dub-con, genderfuck
Summary: Barney has no idea why she hates Robin so much. Set in season one.
This was just ridiculous.
Barney had been fine setting Ted up with Robin, back when she was the girl in the green sweater who looked totally dirty (and not a little gay, if Barney’s spider-senses were still intact). She didn’t even mind so much when she actually went for Ted. And when Ted returned, and re-returned, to get her? Well. Barney didn’t approve, exactly, but it was kind of funny.
But when he hosted three totally lame parties, AND passed up the chance to score with the hot chick that no one knows?
“I’m not sure I like her.”
That was a lie. Barney was completely, absolutely certain that she did not like Robin Scherbatsky, who was completely ruining Ted for other women.
Not that Barney could really blame him. After all, Robin was as hot as hell. There was no denying that. And she was kinda cool, for a chick. But no woman was worth making that big of an ass out of yourself.
And, to make matters worse, she was totally taking over the group, with her stupid job and her stupid (not all that impressive) breasts. It left a bitter taste in Barney’s mouth.
“You’re being paranoid,” Marshall said, when she voiced her concerns. “Robin’s cool.”
“See! That’s just proof!”
“She’s not so bad,” said Lily. Of course she’d think so. “It’ll be nice to have another girl around.”
“Do I not count as a woman, then?”
“Given that you once gave me a lecture on exactly why you are not a chick, I’d say no.”
Barney leaned back and scoffed. “There’s a difference between being a chick and being a woman.”
“Well, Ted likes her, so you’re going to have to get used to her,” Marshall said, taking a pull of his beer.
Barney leaned back and crossed her arms. She didn’t want to get used to Robin. She wanted things to go back to the way they were. And she was fairly sure she knew how to do it.
* * *
“Oh, come on!” Barney said, arm around Ted’s neck, as they wandered through the streets of Philadelphia, like Bruce Springsteen. “You have to admit that that was pretty damn legendary.”
“We just totally licked the Liberty Bell,” said Ted, with this goofy drunken grin on his face. They’d decided to hit the Philadelphia bars before returning to New York, but they were both way too drunk to drive. Maybe they’d get a hotel room. Maybe they’d just pass out on a park bench. Who knew? This, Barney thought, was the beauty of legendary adventures - you never knew what was going to happen or where you were going to end up.
“Way better than the same old bar?”
Ted nodded. “Kinda wish that…”
“If you end that sentence with ‘Robin was here’, I will be forced to punch you.”
“I was going to say Marshall.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Although, now that you mention it -“
“May I remind you that if I do end up punching you, you can’t hit me back?”
Ted just looked at her. “Are you really twisting the laws of chivalry to your own purposes?”
Barney just shrugged and laughed, squeezing her arm a little tighter around Ted’s shoulders. She noticed, again, how nice he smelled. Sure, it was kind of a girly smell, from all of the crap in his hair, and that would be a valid thing to make fun of him for. But it was sort of laced with Old Spice and detergent, and some weird of edge of masculinity that usually didn’t do much for her, but maybe his girliness balanced it out, Barney wasn’t sure, because it worked now.
Ted waved his hand in front of her face, and she blinked. “What?”
Ted laughed. “You were staring at me.”
“Pft! Was not.” She chuckled, nervously.
Ted ran his tongue over his teeth, experimentally. “Wow, I still taste like pennies.”
“Dude, that’s freedom. Don’t you know anything?”
Ted paused, as if he was considering it. “Nope, definitely pennies.”
Barney considered Ted’s lips. “You want a second opinion or something?” she asked, in a way that was kind of joking.
Ted stopped smiling.
“I meant making out,” Barney clarified.
“Um… that’d probably be a bad idea.”
Barney swallowed and attempted to pull away, but then she rediscovered how inconvenient gravity could be at times, so she had to lean back on him. “Yeah. Probably.”
“Wouldn’t want to make things weird.”
“Totally not.”
Barney kind of wanted to know if Ted did taste like pennies. If he still tasted the way she remembered, like beer and breath mints and something else she couldn’t name, something that was just… Ted.
She shook her head. They both needed to get laid.
* * *
Neither of them actually ended up laid. Barney insisted that she had gotten close: if the girl hadn't happened to be a militant Christian, she totally would've been a lesbian. Ted said that "almost" didn't count for anything, but that was because he was a girl.
So the two of them ended up booking a hotel.
“With two beds,” Ted told the receptionist, pointedly.
“Or with one bed and one of those pull-out couches,” Barney said.
“You want to sleep on a pull-out couch?”
“Of course not. You’re sleeping on the pull-out couch.”
The receptionist chuckled. “Trouble in paradise?”
“Oh, no,” Ted said, quickly. “We’re not together.” Barney couldn’t help but feel a little indignant, but of course she didn’t say anything. The receptionist raised an eyebrow and swiped Barney’s credit card.
“OK, then,” she said. “Enjoy your stay.”
Now, if they lived in some crappy sitcom, there’d end up being some sort of convention in town, and there’d only be a room with a double bed available. Then she and Ted would have to awkwardly place the pillows between them. And then they’d probably have sex (given that, as almost all of Barney’s fantasies were, this sitcom was X-rated). But life is woefully short on crappy sitcom conventions, so the room was exactly as they had specified, with two beds.
Barney was forced to strip down to her blouse and panties to go to sleep, and Ted ended up in just his boxers. But whereas Barney felt obligated to ogle Ted when he wasn’t looking, Ted never so much as glanced her way. It was oddly unsatisfactory.
Ted feel on the bed, mumbling “G’night” at her. Barney sat down on the bed and got under the covers, turning her back to him. She tried to sleep, but the whole night she kept wondering what would happen if she got up and got under Ted’s sheets. And, for the first time in a long time, she was afraid of what sex might mean.
The next morning, she and Ted left the city of brotherly love, and Barney didn’t think she’d ever set foot there again.
***
It was almost illogical, how much Barney didn’t like Robin.
Looking at the facts, it made no sense. Robin was cool enough to take up her ridiculous dares on live television. And then, a few weeks later, she got them into Okay, which was only the hardest club in Manhattan to get into at the time. She was clearly superior to most specimens of her gender.
But there was just something about her, particularly when she was with Ted, that made Barney want to knock out some of her shiny white reporter teeth.
Barney had never been one for introspection, but even she knew that something was up.
“We’re wearing the same thing. Oh, wait, that’s just my shirt reflected in your shirt.” Lily said, looking her up and down as she enters Ted and Marshall’s apartment.
“Ha. First of all, this is a dress, and second of all, one of the 24 similarities between women and fish - they’re both attracted to shiny things.”
“That’s a dress? I just figured that you forgot your pants. I wasn’t going to say anything, because it’s funny when you make an ass out of yourself.”
“Bite me, Lily. No, really. Bite me. You’ll like it.”
“Will you two stop it?” Marshall said, from the kitchen. “I’m arranging the gouda.”
“And you need absolute silence for this massively important task?” Barney asked, sarcastically.
The truth is, it did feel kind of weird, not wearing pants. She didn’t even have any skirts in her wardrobe. But clubbing was one of the few times when she abandoned her suits, the whole suit, and nothing but the suits policy. And the look on Ted’s face when he saw it was totally worth it.
“My eyes are up here, Mosby,” she said, with a sardonic smirk. But then he actually did stop staring at her legs, and somehow it was less fun. And then when he saw Robin (who was wearing way too many clothes for a hot, sweaty club), his eyes lit up, and Barney balled her hands into fists so tight that her fingernails threatened to break skin.
So Barney took the only feasible course of action available to her. She went in, danced, and waited for some guy to grind up against her. He was pretty hot, so she took him home.
She didn’t like it as much as she’d liked being with Ted.
* * *
“What’s with the recent male streak?” Robin asked her, a few weeks later at the bar.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” replied Barney, casually.
“For the past few weeks, you’ve kind of been going home with a lot of guys,” Robin said. “I thought you were a lesbian.”
“So, what, I’m not allowed to experiment?” Barney said, defensively. “Only heterosexuals can try something different?”
“No, I’m not saying that. It’s just that you’ve shown no interest in guys -“
“So now you know me? Is that it?”
Robin shook her head. “It’s not like that. Slow your roll.”
“You slow your own damn roll.”
“I was just asking.”
“Well, I don’t need your approval, Scherbatsky. I can sleep with whoever I want.”
Robin shrugged and took a sip of her beer. “Have fun with that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Robin just gave her a look. Barney sighed and rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Robin. There’s no reason for it. I just felt like mixing it up a bit, is all.”
“Cool.”
“Don’t you ever feel like trying it with a woman?” She didn’t know why she asked - God, they were getting perilously close to bonding. “Or have you?”
“No,” Robin replied, sharply. “I’m not into girls. Nope.”
Barney raised an eyebrow, but before she could ask anything else, Marshall and Lily came back to the booth, and that was the end of their little tête à tête.
Barney played it casual, her heterosexual streak, even when Marshall and Lily noticed that she hadn’t picked up a woman in a while. But it wasn’t casual.
It was easy, sure. With girls, she’d always been swimming against the current. They were so reluctant to give it up, especially to another woman. With guys, all she had to do was show up looking hot, bat her eyelashes, and laugh at their jokes, and they were yours. It was simple, unchallenging. Boring. And none of them could make her feel the way she had with Ted. That severely pissed her off.
At first, she had gravitated towards the Ted types - dark hair, scruffy clothes (although not as scruffy as Ted - seriously, the guy needed to learn how to dress himself, stat), awe-struck gaze. They varied. Some of them were awful, whispered poetry and apologetic fumbles. One, quite memorably, had ejaculated all over himself in the middle of foreplay, like some horny teenager. Others were all right. Attentive enough, anyway. But then they’d go on about wanting to “hold” her, and she was out of there quicker than you could mime retching. Then she’d realized just what she was doing, and went for the complete opposite. Jerks. The guys with the lame pick-up lines and the perfect teeth. They all sucked, and not in the good way. They all acted like they were doing her a favor by sleeping with her, when they couldn’t even make her come. One guy had tried to stick his cock in her mouth, and she’d told him that if he even tried it, she’d bite it off. (Seriously, WHO came up with that?)
She was pretty much running out of patience with the whole thing by the time Ted caught on.
She was leaning on the bar, briefly considering just going for the sexy redhead in the corner who’s totally reading AfterEllen on her laptop, but then discarding the notion because when she latches onto something, she doesn’t let go, dammit, no matter how unpleasant it may be, when Ted came up to her. “Hey,” he said, and a smile slid on her face way too easily.
“Hey. What’s up?”
“You’ve been picking up a lot of guys lately.”
“Wow, don’t ease in there, Mosby. Go right for the throat!”
Ted gave her one of those annoyingly Mosby looks, like he could see to the very heart of her. “Why?”
“Ted, you should know better than anybody that I’m not one of those phallus-phobic lesbians.” Barney tried to look casual as she sipped her drink, but her eyes drifted over to Ted of their own accord.
“Is this because of us?” he asked, in a quiet voice.
“What? No way, dude. Barely even remember it.” That was a lie - she remembered every second of it. And she hadn’t been able to equal it with any of the bozos she’d picked up.
Was it possible that Ted Mosby was just a god among men? Ugh, no way. He owned sweatpants from Target. He had no right to be as good of a lover as he was.
So it had to be something else.
“Barney, you’re my friend. I want to know if something’s up with you.”
Barney looked over at him. “Best friend,” she said, in a small voice.
“Marshall’s my best friend,” Ted told her, for about the millionth time. Barney rolled her eyes.
“I totally let you sleep with me that one time. If that doesn’t qualify me for best friend status, what will?”
Ted laughed, and Barney couldn’t help but giggle along. “If I recall correctly,” Ted said, teasingly, “you kissed me.”
“You gave me the signal.”
“There’s no such thing!”
“And you totally were trying to pick me up that first night.”
“How many times do I have to tell you…” He shook his head. “So, you’re OK?”
She smiled at him. “Never better.”
He flashed her a grin and returned to the bar, carrying the beer. She watched him go, as something slowly twisted in her gut, as a hollow feeling in her heart suddenly struck her and then dissipated as quickly as it came.
She went home with the redhead.
* * *
Barney wasn’t jealous of Victoria. Much.
Not in the same way that she was with Robin, anyway. Robin was Ted’s dream girl - smart, funny, beautiful. Victoria was cool, and all, but Barney knew that Ted would drop her like a hot potato if he ever got a shot with Robin. And besides, she had no reason to be jealous of Ted’s girlfriend. Robin, she could hate, because of the way she had invaded the group. But if she hated Victoria, it would be based purely on the fact that she was with Ted. And why would she be jealous of that?
Still, she didn’t think they’d be buddies anytime soon. And she didn’t really like to see her and Ted together. For some reason.
“You know, you can look in the mirror and see who it is,” Robin said, after Barney tried hitting on her accidentally one night. Marshall and Lily were doing some lame couple’s trip, and Ted was out with Victoria.
“Oh,” Barney said. “Thanks.” And then she went to hit on someone else.
It wasn’t long before she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see Robin. She wanted to say “what?”, but managed to downgrade it to an icy “Yes?”
“My friend’s making out with some random guy.”
Barney looked over at the table. “Good for her.”
She rolled her eyes. “And she’s not exactly great company at this very second.”
“I can’t imagine she would be.”
“So I was wondering if I could drink with you.” Robin sounded like she was pushing her dentist appointment forward a few days - something necessary but nonetheless unpleasant.
“There I can’t help you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m entertaining this young…” Barney turned around. “Damn it, Robin, you scared her away!”
Robin sat down next to Barney. “Jeez, what did I ever do to make you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you,” Barney replied, unconvincingly. Robin gave her a skeptical look. “Why would I hate you? You’re beautiful and smart and funny and awesome and Ted totally loves you.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of that last part.
Robin looked down in her drink. “You really think that?”
“Duh. He’s only been mooning after you since the moment he met you. It’s like, ‘Robin this’ and ‘Robin that’ and ‘Barney, what do you think of Robin’?”
“But then he hooked up with Victoria.”
“Well, technically they haven’t hooked up. I swear, Ted’s turning into a total woman.” Actually, that’s not a bad thought.
“So he really…” Robin stops again, and Barney looks up at her. She looks confused. Sad. It’s sort of the same expression that she’d seen on her own face a lot, whenever she looked in the mirror.
“You like Ted,” Barney said, the truth dawning on her. Robin didn’t say anything. Barney looked down into her scotch.
This was awful. If something happened to Ted and Victoria, Robin would be all over Ted. Then they’d get married and have babies (because, despite what Robin said, Barney knew that all chicks secretly wanted to find Mr. Right), and where would that leave Barney? Best man.
Short of a wingman, she told herself. Loss of a bro. Yeah.
Barney lifted her eyes. She knew that, if Ted and Victoria didn’t make it, Robin would get what she wanted. But there isn’t any hatred when she looks at her.
“Ted’s… he’s a good guy. Don’t tell him I said that.”
Robin smirked. “Do you like him?”
“What? No! No way. Nuh-uh.” Barney looked around the room, aware of her fluster. “No.”
Robin simply nodded, indulgently. “Wow, look at us. Pathetic, huh?”
Barney scoffed. “You, maybe. Nothing can hamper my awesome.”
And then Robin laughed, really laughed. It was the first time she’d ever laughed at something Barney had said, without contempt or derision. It wasn’t a bad sound.
Barney always knew her dislike of Robin was irrational.
“Hey, do you want to go hang out at my place? We could play Battleship.” Robin’s voice was light, joking. Barney glanced over at her.
“Um, I don’t think that would be the best idea.”
“What?”
“Well, with Ted, and everything. I mean, you’re smoking, but I’d have to call him first to check if it’s OK.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Battleship.”
Robin looked at her, puzzled. “You need to ask Ted’s permission to play a board game?”
“No, of course not. I need his permission to -“ Wait, could she be talking about actual Battleship? “Wait, you mean actual Battleship?”
“Yeah. As in ‘You sunk my’. Heard of it?”
Oh. Barney stood up. “Of course I’ve heard of it. Of course, I cheat.”
“Me, too.”
They talk strategy all the way to Robin’s apartment. They don’t have sex, and they don’t do much in the way of female bonding either, either of the fun handcuffs variety or the excruciating cookie dough ice cream variety. Barney got the feeling that Robin disliked sharing things the same way she did.
It was fun.
***
Here’s what happened with Shannon:
They met in college. Shannon was Barney’s first girlfriend, the first woman she ever made love to. And it was great. Shannon was cute and fun and smart. She told Barney about the atrocities of the diamond trade and about genocide and about civil wars in countries that had names that Barney couldn’t pronounce. And, more importantly, Shannon loved Barney. Shannon made her feel beautiful, made her feel like it was OK to have bee-sting breasts and gangly legs. She’d convinced Barney to keep her hair long, even when she considered cutting it. Shannon was amazing and perfect and Barney would stay with her for as long as she would have her. Barney was completely smitten.
They left college, moved in together, started working at a café. One day, just before they were due to leave for Nicaragua, a man in a suit came in and seemed way too pleased to get coffee from two lesbians, but Barney didn’t think anything of it. After all, he wasn’t the first guy to come into the café and make perverted comments.
But then Shannon ditched her before they left. Barney told Shannon she loved her; Shannon told her that her new boyfriend had a boat.
Barney tried to go back to her life. She kept making coffee, serving people, trying to smile. But then one day, right at the end of the day when she was going to go home, Jewel came on the radio and Barney just broke down crying.
The guy, the same guy, Greg, he sidled up next to her and asked her what was wrong. She should’ve been less naïve, more careful. But she was young, and stupid, and trusting, so she ended up telling him everything. He was sympathetic, and he listened to her, and she didn’t even notice he was touching her until his hand was almost at the crease between her leg and her hip.
He asked her if she wanted to feel better. She nodded.
He took her in a back room. It was dark, cramped. She was about to say something, ask if maybe they could go somewhere else, when his mouth was on hers. The pressure was brutal, and Barney recognizes what it was now - he didn’t want to give her a chance to change her mind.
He pushed up her skirt (the last time she wore a skirt), unzipped his pants. He fingered her, and then he fucked her. When he was done, he left. She stood there for a while, and then went and locked up. It was only when she got home that she started sobbing.
Greg came in a day or two later, with Shannon on his arm. He laughed at her, and when he walked out, he snaked an arm around Shannon’s waist, and then looked back and winked.
The suits were a method of control, she was told, in her last psych evaluation for Altrucell. Dr. Grossbard told her that she had taken on the persona of her attacker in order to keep herself from being victimized. She told him that was a load of crap. She wasn’t a victim. She’d said yes. Besides, everything else she told him was a lie, so that probably skewed the results.
She didn’t sleep with another man for seven years, give or take. It wasn’t that she couldn’t, she just didn’t want to. She was a lesbian, after all. Greg was evidence enough that straying out of that was a mistake. And it was kind of hard to look at a guy that way, at first. But she got over it. The thing with Ted was just good timing.
She didn’t tell the group about what had happened until Lily had found the tape of her begging Shannon to take her back. She’d sat down at the bar and told them the story in a flat monotone. And then she’d left.
Ted was the one who followed her out of MacLaren’s. “Barney, wait.”
Barney stopped, and turned on her heel. “Leave me alone, Mosby.”
“Look, I’m… what happened to you was terrible.”
“Gee, ya think?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Wasn’t your fault.”
“Damn it, Barney! I’m trying to be a good friend here.”
Barney sighed. “Look. It happened eight years ago. I’m over it!”
“Barney…”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Ted. Can’t you respect that?”
Ted took a deep breath. “Fine.” He didn’t look very happy about it. “But…”
Barney was turning to leave. She stopped. “What?”
“Was I the first? After what happened? Was I the first guy you slept with?”
Barney just looked at him. “Good night, Ted. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Barney walked home, shoulders hunched, hands in her jacket. A giggling drunken couple walked past her, and Barney considered pushing their stupid happy faces in the New York gutter water.
She’d be fine tomorrow.
***
As Barney predicted, the Robin mess started up again. But this time it was harder to be angry at Robin, which was annoying. So Barney just thanked God that Robin was mad at Ted. She knew that they’d sort it out, of course they would. But it wouldn’t be for a while.
“Barney, why aren’t you wearing a dress?” Robin asked, when she and Lily had both changed (the second time) for Prom.
“Barney doesn’t need to slut up - she already is one,” Lily said, and Barney stuck her tongue out at her.
She didn’t see Lily again until later that night. Barney was sitting in the police station for the larceny of the stupid turtle costume and, as Lily explained, the group had decided that, since it had been Lily’s idea to go to the Prom, it was Lily’s responsibility to post bail for her.
“Thanks,” Barney said, reluctantly.
“You’re welcome,” Lily replied, equally reluctantly.
Out of fairness, Barney paid for the cab. Lily straightened her skirt as she got in. “You look totally hot,” Barney told her.
“I’m going to pretend that’s a compliment.” Lily sighed, and looked out the window. Barney was considering asking if something was wrong when Lily blurted, “What’s sex with women like?”
“Wet. Why?”
“I’m just curious.”
Barney grinned. “You know, it’d probably be easier to show you by example.”
Lily paused, then shook her head. “Really, it’s nothing.”
Barney looked at her. What brought this on? Were she and Marshall having problems? Was she getting cold feet or something? The thought was surprisingly unpleasant.
“It’s just…” Lily said, with a sigh. “You can’t turn this into some lewd joke.”
“Would I?” Lily just glared at her. “OK, I would. But I won’t. Probably.”
Lily looked hesitant, but she continued, “There’s so many things I never got to do, you know? Because I was with Marshall. Like experiment.” She laughed, bitterly. “I don’t even know if I’m really attracted to women, or if I’m just trying to be edgy. How can you when you’ve never had any experience with them?”
Barney looked down. “I always knew I was more into girls than guys.”
“But did you always know you felt at least something for men?”
“Well, it’s completely different. Girls are supposed to like guys. And I didn’t really enjoy any of my earlier experiences. Or many of the later ones, actually.”
“Then you’re not really attracted to guys?”
“No!” Barney said, too quickly. She cleared her throat. “I… I have to be.”
Lily gave her a weird look, and Barney practically sighed with relief when she didn’t push the issue.
Of course, then Lily kissed her, and all of Barney’s senses went into overdrive.
Her lips were soft and sweet, just like she’d always thought. She didn’t open her lips, and Barney didn’t try to slip her any tongue, but it still lasted way too long for a friend kiss. Barney pulled away first, to her surprise as much as Lily’s.
“Marshall’s a really great guy.” There was something definitively not-right about Lily freaking out like that. Marshall and Lily were supposed to be together.
Oh, God, Barney felt like choking herself the second she thought that. It was true, though.
“I- I know. You’re… not going to tell him, are you?”
“No,” Barney said, simply, and Lily looked relieved. Barney laughed. “I can keep a secret. I mean, I totally never told anyone about the time me and Ted did it.”
“You had sex with TED?”
Crap.
***
“I’m gonna make it rain.”
Barney went along with the plan. She wanted to believe Ted when he said this would be his last try with Robin. And, besides, what were the chances that he’d actually make it rain?
So Barney hooked him up with Penelope. She watched him dance around, and it was pretty funny, until she realized that Ted would never - ever - have done anything like this for her, his (best) friend.
And then she felt sick.
But it wouldn’t work, anyway. It was just a stupid gesture. He couldn’t make it rain.
He couldn’t. Right?