Co-Fic: Brohemian (1/?)
Yeah, this is the super-secret AU. It's still very much a work in progress, so I have just about as much knowledge as to where it's all headed as you guys do. IO and I are having loads of fun with it, and we hope you guys do, too.
Title: Brohemian (1/?)
Co-Author: idioticonion
Fandom: HIMYM
Pairings: Barney/Lily, various other combos
Rating: This part is PG, but later parts get NC-17
Wordcount: 2100 in this part
Summary: AU, set around season one. Barney and Lily are starving artists living together in a run-down apartment building. However, things take an interesting turn when Barney meets a young reporter and Lily runs into her old friend, Ted.
Lily scoops back her long black hair, plaiting it, and scowls at the canvas, placing her hands on her hips. Her smock is stained and rank with oil paint. The wooden floor is spattered with droplets and crazed, multi-colored swirls. The canvas itself looks...
Boring.
Pedestrian.
Nothing like she expected it to.
Trouble is, Lily knows exactly what she wants to paint, she just doesn't know how to execute it. It's like she's always saying to her roommate, she has all these ideas, hundreds of ideas buzzing around, but most of them just result in torn up sheets of wasted paper that she can't afford.
Whoever said the life of a starving artist in New York City was glamorous needs their head examined. Lily thinks back to her days at Wesleyan a few years ago (before she'd dropped out in frustration) and how easy and effortless life had seemed back then. But her trip to Paris had changed her, opened up her world. And somehow, being a student, that was a skin that no longer fitted her.
It’s like she's always telling Barney...
He’s her roommate - a few years older than her but with even less money coming in. He plays violin with the prestigious New York Philharmonic orchestra - which you would think means a decent salary. But apparently not. The guy's meager existence makes even church mice seem extravagant by comparison. They both make a little extra cash drawing portraits Central Park until the cops move them along. It's nice, working side by side with him, but she wishes he'd have a bit more fun. He’s so damned earnest all the time.
Speak of the devil...?
Barney pushes open the door to their condemned apartment in a broken down lot in the most unfashionable part of Manhattan.
"Hey, Lil! Life suck today?" He calls out, swinging his violin case on to its usual home, nestled on top of their single wardrobe.
"Hey, Barney!" Lily grins. "It sucked so hard it gave itself brain freeze!"
"Still working on the bridge painting?" he asks. "Run out of razorblades yet?"
Lily rolls her eyes. "Once! Once I did the razorblade thing. And you're never going to let me forget it!"
He beams at her, loosening his ponytail so that his long, blonde hair fans out around his shoulders. "Sure, goth girl."
"Bite me, hippie!"
It's an old routine they both know well. He unfolds his lanky frame onto their battered couch and stares up at her, hands behind his head.
"So," he says. "I met a girl today."
“Well, that’s a shocker,” Lily says, sitting carefully on the arm of the couch.
Barney shakes his head. “This one’s different.” Lily looks at him, skeptically. He says that every time he meets a pretty girl. Barney looks at the clock on the wall. “Hey, she’s on!” He goes over to their TV (which is probably older than Lily is) and turns it on. The black and white screen flickers to life as a woman talks into the camera.
“And I’m sure that this story will strike a… chord with all of our viewers,” the woman says, with a smile that looks pasted on. “Back to you, Sandy.”
Lily raises one eyebrow as Barney stares at the screen intently. “You have actually spoken to this woman, haven’t you?”
“Of course I have,” Barney says, as if that had never happened before. “Her name’s Robin.”
“Is she married?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Does she have a criminal record?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is she a neo-Nazi?”
“Hey, you liked Susan.”
Lily shakes her head. “You really know how to pick ‘em, don’t you?”
“Hey, lay off.” Barney turns off the TV and sits back down. “Just because you haven’t gotten laid since Audrey…”
“That’s not true!” she says, defensively. “I mean, there was that time, with that one guy.” It’s Barney’s turn to look skeptical. “Besides, I’m not like you,” Lily says. “I don’t have to have someone in my life at all times.”
“It’s not like that,” Barney says. “Robin’s… I really like her.”
Lily knows that it’ll be over before the month is out. But all she says is, “Did you ask her out?”
“Actually, I’m meeting her tonight. 75th and Amsterdam. Place called MacLaren’s.”
“Ugh, sounds like some god-awful sports bar.”
Barney shrugs. “Hey, it’s something.” He yawns and stretches. “So, do we have any actual food today, or what?”
* * *
Sometimes Lily misses pot - what she needs right now is something to get her in that zone - chill her out. She rummages around in their single wardrobe for something classy to wear tonight, something that won't make her look like a twelve-year-old. Trouble is, she and Barney regularly get carded. Even now, even in her mid twenties and his late twenties, both of them look barely legal. The curse of the baby-face, Lily supposes. She just knows they'll both look out of place.
Why do they have to go anyway?
Barney comes out from the bathroom in a cloud of steam and patchouli (a smell that seems to follow the guy around) wearing a long-sleeved sweater and a pair of jeans. Lily has a sudden impulse to scream at him to cut his damn hair and get a life, but she bites it back. They've talked before about her anger issues. Usually she gets them out in her painting but being blocked really isn't helping.
What Lily needs is inspiration, and she's not going to get it from some sports bar. Although maybe if she spends the entire time fantasizing about the whole preppy crowd being massacred...
"Why can't you just go on your own, anyways?" Lily grumbles as she passes him on her way to the bathroom.
"Hey..." He says with his soft voice, looking at her with his gentle eyes. "You're my wingwoman!" He grins ironically and she laughs, flipping him the bird.
"You owe me for this, Barney!" She growls.
"Sure, Lil. Sure."
* * *
It’s exactly what Lily had expected. The crowd is full of pretty clean twenty-somethings who look like they’ve just stumbled out of the Gap. She knows that the high-pitched giggling of bimbos is going to give her a headache by the end of the night. On the plus side, the bartender’s kind of cute.
“So, where’s your girl?” Lily asks Barney, as he peers across the room.
“She’s probably not here yet,” Barney says.
“Well, if she’s stood you up, I’m not going to hang out here all night waiting for her.”
“You’re such a great friend.”
Lily lets out a sarcastic laugh. “You buying the beer?”
“You know I’m broke,” he replies, with a shrug and a grin.
“Well, so am I!”
Barney looks like he’s about to reply, but then his eyes light up. Lily looks over her shoulder at the door. A girl with shoulder-length brown hair and really nice legs walks over.
“Hey, Barney,” she says.
“Robin.” He’s grinning like an idiot, and it’s all Lily can do to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “This is Lil!” he says, turning to her. Lily nods, and Robin gives her a big smile.
“So, you’re the roommate,” Robin says.
“Yup. Although, really, he’s more like my guest, considering how little money he brings in.”
Barney glares at her, but Robin just laughs.
“So,” she says, “do you want to grab a booth?”
“Yeah!” Barney says. “Lil, do you want to…”
Lily sighs. It’s obvious that he wants to spend some alone time with this Robin chick. “I’ll get the beer.”
Barney smiles gratefully and leads Robin to one of the booths while Lily goes over to the bar and orders three beers. Why she’s paying for Barney’s date is anyone’s guess.
She leans on the bar and sighs. It reminds her of when she was a teenager, and when sneaking into bars with her fake ID was the biggest thrill ever. But now all she can think is that there probably isn’t a single person in this bar who knows who Rothko is. Luckily, Barney’ll get bored of Robin soon enough, and she’ll never have to set foot in this place again.
Lily is digging through her pockets for money when someone walks up behind her.
“Lily Aldrin?”
Lily turns around. “Ted Mosby?”
The first thing that surprises Lily is how different Ted looks. He's cut his frizz-helmet and his hair is waxed and teased and looking kinda normal. Also, he's dressed pretty smart, like he's a success, like he's sold out and become a regular guy.
Lily remembers when Ted was the most pretentious person she knew. She suspects that, deep down, he's still something of a hipster and she's proved right by the first thing he says to her.
"Hey! It's good to see you. You want a drink? They do a great bottle of Chateau Livran."
"We were kinda getting a beer?" Lily replies, waving her thumb over her shoulder at Barney.
Ted nods in a kind of frantically-casual way. "Oh, right. That your boyfriend?"
A laugh bursts out of her. "Me and Barney? God no!" Then she slaps a hand across her mouth as it's possible Barney's date might have heard her. "No, wow. He's just a friend." Lily's gaze drifts back to the table, then to Ted. Barney and Robin are talking earnestly and she doesn't feel much like being the third wheel. "Hey, Ted, you wanna join us? We can catch up?"
Ted shrugs and smiles vaguely, like he's just being polite, until he spots Robin. Then his eyes light up in a way that Lily has only seen them do once before, in college, whenever he was with his horrible ex-girlfriend, Karen.
Okay, this could be bad, but Ted's already halfway to the booth before she can stop him, leaving Lily to trail in his wake, carrying all the beer. He's already slid into the booth next to Robin and is introducing himself when she finally gets there. She sits down next to Barney and her friend glowers at her.
"Uh..." Lily says, as Robin laughs out loud at something Ted said.
"You're funny," The taller girl drawls, playing with her hair.
This is really bad.
Barney shoots daggers in Ted's direction but her old friend barely notices. He’s way too busy hitting on Barney's date.
* * *
Lily wonders if it's possible to be a fourth wheel.
Ted and Robin are clearly hitting it off, if the frequency with which she laughs at his lame jokes and touches his arm was any indication. She could try talking to Barney, but he's glaring at Ted with an intensity that Lily knows better than to get in the middle of.
So she sighs, and sips her beer, and waits for Ted and Robin to go away. Then she'll have to deal with Barney's bitching, but at least he'll talk to her.
"So, Ted," Barney says, with a passive-aggressive cheer that makes Lily consider just packing up and going home, "how do you know Lily?"
"Oh," Ted says, dragging his gaze away from Robin in order to look in their direction. "We went to college together."
"Yeah," Lily says. "He was Marshall's roommate."
Barney frowns slightly, and for a moment Lily wonders if he's trawling his memory for a reference to Marshall. As much as she loves Barney, he's so scatterbrained sometimes that it makes her crazy. But then, surprisingly, Barney suddenly gives Lily a look that says he knows exactly who Ted's talking about.
"Ah, Lil's college sweetheart? He’s a lawyer by now?"
Wow - Barney really was paying attention. Lily’s still smiling at Barney gratefully when Ted turns away from Robin and nods. "Yep, and he's right here in New York if you wanna catch up sometime, Lily?" She can see Barney bristle at the way Ted is clearly excluding him from the invite.
"Wow, I don't know," Lily says, a little flustered. "Well, I've kinda moved on, you know? My painting... I've got an exhibition at the weekend!" She lies quickly and carelessly, hoping that Barney won't contradict her.
"Hey, we could come to that," Ted grins enthusiastically. "I'd love to see your work. Where is it?"
Lily gulps. Oh crap.
Link to Part Two
Title: Brohemian (1/?)
Co-Author: idioticonion
Fandom: HIMYM
Pairings: Barney/Lily, various other combos
Rating: This part is PG, but later parts get NC-17
Wordcount: 2100 in this part
Summary: AU, set around season one. Barney and Lily are starving artists living together in a run-down apartment building. However, things take an interesting turn when Barney meets a young reporter and Lily runs into her old friend, Ted.
Lily scoops back her long black hair, plaiting it, and scowls at the canvas, placing her hands on her hips. Her smock is stained and rank with oil paint. The wooden floor is spattered with droplets and crazed, multi-colored swirls. The canvas itself looks...
Boring.
Pedestrian.
Nothing like she expected it to.
Trouble is, Lily knows exactly what she wants to paint, she just doesn't know how to execute it. It's like she's always saying to her roommate, she has all these ideas, hundreds of ideas buzzing around, but most of them just result in torn up sheets of wasted paper that she can't afford.
Whoever said the life of a starving artist in New York City was glamorous needs their head examined. Lily thinks back to her days at Wesleyan a few years ago (before she'd dropped out in frustration) and how easy and effortless life had seemed back then. But her trip to Paris had changed her, opened up her world. And somehow, being a student, that was a skin that no longer fitted her.
It’s like she's always telling Barney...
He’s her roommate - a few years older than her but with even less money coming in. He plays violin with the prestigious New York Philharmonic orchestra - which you would think means a decent salary. But apparently not. The guy's meager existence makes even church mice seem extravagant by comparison. They both make a little extra cash drawing portraits Central Park until the cops move them along. It's nice, working side by side with him, but she wishes he'd have a bit more fun. He’s so damned earnest all the time.
Speak of the devil...?
Barney pushes open the door to their condemned apartment in a broken down lot in the most unfashionable part of Manhattan.
"Hey, Lil! Life suck today?" He calls out, swinging his violin case on to its usual home, nestled on top of their single wardrobe.
"Hey, Barney!" Lily grins. "It sucked so hard it gave itself brain freeze!"
"Still working on the bridge painting?" he asks. "Run out of razorblades yet?"
Lily rolls her eyes. "Once! Once I did the razorblade thing. And you're never going to let me forget it!"
He beams at her, loosening his ponytail so that his long, blonde hair fans out around his shoulders. "Sure, goth girl."
"Bite me, hippie!"
It's an old routine they both know well. He unfolds his lanky frame onto their battered couch and stares up at her, hands behind his head.
"So," he says. "I met a girl today."
“Well, that’s a shocker,” Lily says, sitting carefully on the arm of the couch.
Barney shakes his head. “This one’s different.” Lily looks at him, skeptically. He says that every time he meets a pretty girl. Barney looks at the clock on the wall. “Hey, she’s on!” He goes over to their TV (which is probably older than Lily is) and turns it on. The black and white screen flickers to life as a woman talks into the camera.
“And I’m sure that this story will strike a… chord with all of our viewers,” the woman says, with a smile that looks pasted on. “Back to you, Sandy.”
Lily raises one eyebrow as Barney stares at the screen intently. “You have actually spoken to this woman, haven’t you?”
“Of course I have,” Barney says, as if that had never happened before. “Her name’s Robin.”
“Is she married?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Does she have a criminal record?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is she a neo-Nazi?”
“Hey, you liked Susan.”
Lily shakes her head. “You really know how to pick ‘em, don’t you?”
“Hey, lay off.” Barney turns off the TV and sits back down. “Just because you haven’t gotten laid since Audrey…”
“That’s not true!” she says, defensively. “I mean, there was that time, with that one guy.” It’s Barney’s turn to look skeptical. “Besides, I’m not like you,” Lily says. “I don’t have to have someone in my life at all times.”
“It’s not like that,” Barney says. “Robin’s… I really like her.”
Lily knows that it’ll be over before the month is out. But all she says is, “Did you ask her out?”
“Actually, I’m meeting her tonight. 75th and Amsterdam. Place called MacLaren’s.”
“Ugh, sounds like some god-awful sports bar.”
Barney shrugs. “Hey, it’s something.” He yawns and stretches. “So, do we have any actual food today, or what?”
* * *
Sometimes Lily misses pot - what she needs right now is something to get her in that zone - chill her out. She rummages around in their single wardrobe for something classy to wear tonight, something that won't make her look like a twelve-year-old. Trouble is, she and Barney regularly get carded. Even now, even in her mid twenties and his late twenties, both of them look barely legal. The curse of the baby-face, Lily supposes. She just knows they'll both look out of place.
Why do they have to go anyway?
Barney comes out from the bathroom in a cloud of steam and patchouli (a smell that seems to follow the guy around) wearing a long-sleeved sweater and a pair of jeans. Lily has a sudden impulse to scream at him to cut his damn hair and get a life, but she bites it back. They've talked before about her anger issues. Usually she gets them out in her painting but being blocked really isn't helping.
What Lily needs is inspiration, and she's not going to get it from some sports bar. Although maybe if she spends the entire time fantasizing about the whole preppy crowd being massacred...
"Why can't you just go on your own, anyways?" Lily grumbles as she passes him on her way to the bathroom.
"Hey..." He says with his soft voice, looking at her with his gentle eyes. "You're my wingwoman!" He grins ironically and she laughs, flipping him the bird.
"You owe me for this, Barney!" She growls.
"Sure, Lil. Sure."
* * *
It’s exactly what Lily had expected. The crowd is full of pretty clean twenty-somethings who look like they’ve just stumbled out of the Gap. She knows that the high-pitched giggling of bimbos is going to give her a headache by the end of the night. On the plus side, the bartender’s kind of cute.
“So, where’s your girl?” Lily asks Barney, as he peers across the room.
“She’s probably not here yet,” Barney says.
“Well, if she’s stood you up, I’m not going to hang out here all night waiting for her.”
“You’re such a great friend.”
Lily lets out a sarcastic laugh. “You buying the beer?”
“You know I’m broke,” he replies, with a shrug and a grin.
“Well, so am I!”
Barney looks like he’s about to reply, but then his eyes light up. Lily looks over her shoulder at the door. A girl with shoulder-length brown hair and really nice legs walks over.
“Hey, Barney,” she says.
“Robin.” He’s grinning like an idiot, and it’s all Lily can do to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “This is Lil!” he says, turning to her. Lily nods, and Robin gives her a big smile.
“So, you’re the roommate,” Robin says.
“Yup. Although, really, he’s more like my guest, considering how little money he brings in.”
Barney glares at her, but Robin just laughs.
“So,” she says, “do you want to grab a booth?”
“Yeah!” Barney says. “Lil, do you want to…”
Lily sighs. It’s obvious that he wants to spend some alone time with this Robin chick. “I’ll get the beer.”
Barney smiles gratefully and leads Robin to one of the booths while Lily goes over to the bar and orders three beers. Why she’s paying for Barney’s date is anyone’s guess.
She leans on the bar and sighs. It reminds her of when she was a teenager, and when sneaking into bars with her fake ID was the biggest thrill ever. But now all she can think is that there probably isn’t a single person in this bar who knows who Rothko is. Luckily, Barney’ll get bored of Robin soon enough, and she’ll never have to set foot in this place again.
Lily is digging through her pockets for money when someone walks up behind her.
“Lily Aldrin?”
Lily turns around. “Ted Mosby?”
The first thing that surprises Lily is how different Ted looks. He's cut his frizz-helmet and his hair is waxed and teased and looking kinda normal. Also, he's dressed pretty smart, like he's a success, like he's sold out and become a regular guy.
Lily remembers when Ted was the most pretentious person she knew. She suspects that, deep down, he's still something of a hipster and she's proved right by the first thing he says to her.
"Hey! It's good to see you. You want a drink? They do a great bottle of Chateau Livran."
"We were kinda getting a beer?" Lily replies, waving her thumb over her shoulder at Barney.
Ted nods in a kind of frantically-casual way. "Oh, right. That your boyfriend?"
A laugh bursts out of her. "Me and Barney? God no!" Then she slaps a hand across her mouth as it's possible Barney's date might have heard her. "No, wow. He's just a friend." Lily's gaze drifts back to the table, then to Ted. Barney and Robin are talking earnestly and she doesn't feel much like being the third wheel. "Hey, Ted, you wanna join us? We can catch up?"
Ted shrugs and smiles vaguely, like he's just being polite, until he spots Robin. Then his eyes light up in a way that Lily has only seen them do once before, in college, whenever he was with his horrible ex-girlfriend, Karen.
Okay, this could be bad, but Ted's already halfway to the booth before she can stop him, leaving Lily to trail in his wake, carrying all the beer. He's already slid into the booth next to Robin and is introducing himself when she finally gets there. She sits down next to Barney and her friend glowers at her.
"Uh..." Lily says, as Robin laughs out loud at something Ted said.
"You're funny," The taller girl drawls, playing with her hair.
This is really bad.
Barney shoots daggers in Ted's direction but her old friend barely notices. He’s way too busy hitting on Barney's date.
* * *
Lily wonders if it's possible to be a fourth wheel.
Ted and Robin are clearly hitting it off, if the frequency with which she laughs at his lame jokes and touches his arm was any indication. She could try talking to Barney, but he's glaring at Ted with an intensity that Lily knows better than to get in the middle of.
So she sighs, and sips her beer, and waits for Ted and Robin to go away. Then she'll have to deal with Barney's bitching, but at least he'll talk to her.
"So, Ted," Barney says, with a passive-aggressive cheer that makes Lily consider just packing up and going home, "how do you know Lily?"
"Oh," Ted says, dragging his gaze away from Robin in order to look in their direction. "We went to college together."
"Yeah," Lily says. "He was Marshall's roommate."
Barney frowns slightly, and for a moment Lily wonders if he's trawling his memory for a reference to Marshall. As much as she loves Barney, he's so scatterbrained sometimes that it makes her crazy. But then, surprisingly, Barney suddenly gives Lily a look that says he knows exactly who Ted's talking about.
"Ah, Lil's college sweetheart? He’s a lawyer by now?"
Wow - Barney really was paying attention. Lily’s still smiling at Barney gratefully when Ted turns away from Robin and nods. "Yep, and he's right here in New York if you wanna catch up sometime, Lily?" She can see Barney bristle at the way Ted is clearly excluding him from the invite.
"Wow, I don't know," Lily says, a little flustered. "Well, I've kinda moved on, you know? My painting... I've got an exhibition at the weekend!" She lies quickly and carelessly, hoping that Barney won't contradict her.
"Hey, we could come to that," Ted grins enthusiastically. "I'd love to see your work. Where is it?"
Lily gulps. Oh crap.
Link to Part Two