The Trouble with Barney (1/9)
Title: The Trouble with Barney
Author: Stablergirl
Rating: R, eventually.
Summary: Barney and Robin make a wager and things get awkward and then complicated and then awful and then great.
Author's Note: My first foray in to HIMYM fanfic, and probably a rocky start. This will be multiple chapters, and is not the most original plot idea. Spoilers for pretty much all of Season 4 so far, but you can assume this takes place sometime after Benefits (doesn't everything?)
Disclaimer: Don't own HIMYM or Barney or Robin or any of that. Sorry to borrow, but I'm obsessive by nature, so...
Chapter 1: That girl over there just took her top off and you're asking me about breakfast cereal?
Robin’s been noticing his silence a lot lately.
She’s been noticing his thoughtful silence and his lack of game, which she originally attributed to some kind of post-bus-accident-second-chance-at-life sort of thing. Now, though, she’s thinking it might be due to some new problem of his that nobody has filled her in on yet. She isn’t the most observant member of the group, she knows that. She doesn’t ask a lot of prodding questions and she doesn’t really care to keep her ear to the ground, so she’s pretty much just resigned herself to trailing along after everybody else and finding things out a little bit late in the game. She's fine with it. She doesn't mind being the last to know and being the one who daydreams while everybody else talks to each other in code.
Unless something is wrong with Barney.
Then she thinks she might be angry that people aren’t keeping her in the loop.
It’s 12:30 AM and MacLaren’s is almost empty. Ted, Lily, and Marshall all went home around an hour ago, leaving Robin and Barney to relocate to one of the smaller tables and order a third round of drinks, just the two of them. Which would normally suit Robin just fine, but Barney’s knee keeps bouncing under the table, and his grin hasn’t been directed at a nameless member of the opposite sex in what feels like days.
Robin’s getting nervous because things don’t seem right.
She’s been noticing his silence a lot lately.
So she inhales a brave kind of breath and forces out a question.
“What’s going on with you?” she asks, irritated, concerned but probably sounding insensitive because she’s never been good at this kind of thing.
He looks up at her and offers an incredulous shrug.
“What do you mean?” he answers, off the cuff and casual and all of the other things that Barney usually is on an average Tuesday night. Well-dressed. Generally awesome.
“Something’s going on with you,” she assesses, squinting, leaning closer to him from across the table and pushing her high ball around between her two palms, her expression contemplative and suspicious. “Like fifty girls have walked by this table tonight wearing some form of a tramp stamp or slut jewelry or six inch heels and you’ve barely blinked in their direction. I counted three who were bottle blondes, which I know earns at least two points on the hotness scale, and yet you’re still sitting here chatting with me about how often the Quaker Oatmeal guy would get laid in today’s modern society.”
He swallows a mouthful of beer and points at her. “I still say at least three times a week, maybe four if he got rid of his white collar and just wore the suit.”
Robin huffs and shakes her head, totally aware of his attempt at diversion. This discussion has been going on for the last half hour - way too long for any conversation including the words Quaker and Oatmeal - and she isn’t quite sure how they’re still caught up on it, why she insists on arguing with him about something so mundane. “He’s Quaker, Barney. He wouldn’t try to get laid because by definition he trembles in the way of the Lord.”
“That’s not the only thing he trembles in the way of, am I right?” he offers, nodding exaggeratedly and holding up his hand for an undeserved high five. “What is up?”
Robin eventually slaps his hand because she isn’t sure how long she can stand him sitting there like that, hand poised and waiting, and unfortunately she knows him well enough to know he’d sit waiting all night if he had to.
She vaguely registers for like the fortieth time that he has on his grey suit, the jacket slung over the back of his chair, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his tie loosened around his very white collar, a look on Barney that could make any girl’s mouth water - including Robin’s.
She sucks down the last of her scotch and shoves her empty glass toward him in irritation because she hasn't forgotten that he should've gone home with somebody by now.
“Something’s wrong with you,” she promises, refusing to be distracted.
He blows out an irritated breath and keeps his gaze on the table top, avoiding her, seemingly angry she didn’t let the subject drop the way he’d wanted it to.
“Just tell me,” she prods but his eyes don’t stray from the ketchup stains or the Budweiser label someone had probably pressed onto the worn surface years ago. “Barney,” she pleads, her voice strained because something in her can’t help it and gets severely unnerved when he’s like this, all masculine and serious and way more layered than she usually prefers to notice. She inhales a deep breath and glares at him. “Hit on someone,” she requests, none too gently.
And he looks up, then.
He pins her with a stare.
And it’s like Robin can feel her face get hot from the amount of…god, just something… that’s there. That thing she keeps trying to ignore for the sake of her own sanity because she’s been burned by him before.
“You look good tonight, Robin,” he tells her, his tone flat and serious and his stare sharp on her, pressing into her so that she suddenly has a hard time finding air in the room. She swallows, rolling her eyes as if he hasn’t just made her forget her name for a second.
“I didn’t mean me,” she tells him half-heartedly. He nods once, maybe humoring her, and takes another swig of his beer.
“I’m taking a break from sleeping with idiots,” he eventually confesses, filling the silence with that same serious-flatness, and Robin feels a chuckle bubble up out of her mouth more out of surprise than anything else.
“Are you kidding me?” she questions. She's met with stubborn quiet and so she goes on. “You’re a sex-with-bimbos-addict. And when I say addict I mean you literally cannot live without it. Literally. You’re way past support groups and twelve step programs, Barney, when exactly did you start taking breaks from sleeping with idiots?”
“The timing’s hard to pinpoint.”
“Oh my god,” she sighs, scoffing, and he shrugs for what feels to her like the hundredth time tonight.
“I just don’t like it as much as I used to,” he admits. His eyes are roaming the tabletop again as if there’s something written there that’s interesting. A drawing of the Quaker Oatmeal guy in a suit, for example.
“What, you don’t like what? Sex?” she asks, disbelieving, sure he’ll say hell no, get up, and go grab somebody’s ass. Instead he shrugs again and she knows her blood pressure is climbing higher every second he behaves like this. “You’re kidding me.”
“I’m better at sex than almost everyone I know, Robin,” he promises and she raises her eyebrows at him because…yeah she remembers, “with one exception,” he adds and she flushes, only sure she didn’t take that the wrong way because he tosses a wink in her direction that’s half-hearted but clear in intention. “So, knowing ahead of time that my randomly selected sexual partner will almost certainly be less gifted than either of the people sitting at this table right now makes things kind of boring for a guy, eventually.” His voice is subtly laced with some kind of contempt that’s either meant to accuse her of being an idiot or accuse her of being to blame. She isn’t sure she wants to know which. She shakes her head at him and picks at the label stuck to the table top. “You never get bored with sex?” he asks her, challenging.
“Nope,” she answers simply, feebly attempting to avoid an awkward exchange.
“You can honestly say that you always enjoy your one night stands with whoever you’re sleeping with? Whoever, Canadian jerks who get in fist fights over logging competitions?” he asks her, something like a dare dancing in between his words.
She sucks in some air through her teeth and pretends to shiver happily.
“Always,” she answers, trying to fill his inappropriate shoes, trying to bring some more grossness to the table because something is severely lacking and it’s making her nervous. “Three times a week,” she promises, “maybe four, if I’m wearing a suit.”
He squints.
“I bet you one hundred dollars you can go without one night stands for two weeks without missing them.”
She blinks at him because she thinks sometimes he forgets that she’s a woman.
She’s wrong, but she doesn’t know it.
“Barney, come on,” she mumbles, irritated and tired and wanting another scotch to take the edge off of this.
He raises his eyebrows at her and smirks, amused, intrigued, and the expression on his face sort of makes her feel like something is falling back into an easier place, like something feels a little more normal again. And because of that she’s almost inclined to ignore that she’s gone without sex plenty of times. She’s almost inclined to take the bet, despite the fact that it would be totally unfair to him and way too easy for her. She likes the competitive edge in his expression. She likes that his knee has stopped bouncing and he’s tightening his tie in determination. She likes all sorts of things about him right now, so she clears her throat.
“Ok,” she agrees, “we both give up sex completely for two weeks. We don't tell the others, and whoever gives in to temptation first loses. The winner picks the prize and/or punishment,” she stipulates. He scratches his eyebrow, considering it, sizing her up, and she feels her breath get shallow because he looks hungry for things and he looks even more attractive than he did before. His leg brushes hers under the table and she shifts away automatically, burned as he slowly grins like the Cheshire-cat.
“You're on, Scherbatsky,” he agrees, holding a hand out toward her, “We both keep our panties on for fourteen days straight.” They shake on it and Robin feels something like regret start to seep in even though logically this should be way more difficult for him than it is for her. “You might want to crazy glue those legs together, Robin, I’ve been around you when you’re starved for meat,” he warns, amused.
Ah, she thinks, and this is the Barney Stinson she knows and loves. Or just knows. Remembers from before, fondly, or…just…Whatever.
Fourteen days without sex. It can’t be that hard.
She figures that deserves an obvious-double-entendre high five, and then she shakes her head at her empty scotch glass because sometimes she hears his voice in her head.
And that probably means a lot that she can’t quite own up to just yet.
Chapter 2
*********************************
Chapter 3
Chapter 4 Part I, Part II
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Author: Stablergirl
Rating: R, eventually.
Summary: Barney and Robin make a wager and things get awkward and then complicated and then awful and then great.
Author's Note: My first foray in to HIMYM fanfic, and probably a rocky start. This will be multiple chapters, and is not the most original plot idea. Spoilers for pretty much all of Season 4 so far, but you can assume this takes place sometime after Benefits (doesn't everything?)
Disclaimer: Don't own HIMYM or Barney or Robin or any of that. Sorry to borrow, but I'm obsessive by nature, so...
Chapter 1: That girl over there just took her top off and you're asking me about breakfast cereal?
Robin’s been noticing his silence a lot lately.
She’s been noticing his thoughtful silence and his lack of game, which she originally attributed to some kind of post-bus-accident-second-chance-at-life sort of thing. Now, though, she’s thinking it might be due to some new problem of his that nobody has filled her in on yet. She isn’t the most observant member of the group, she knows that. She doesn’t ask a lot of prodding questions and she doesn’t really care to keep her ear to the ground, so she’s pretty much just resigned herself to trailing along after everybody else and finding things out a little bit late in the game. She's fine with it. She doesn't mind being the last to know and being the one who daydreams while everybody else talks to each other in code.
Unless something is wrong with Barney.
Then she thinks she might be angry that people aren’t keeping her in the loop.
It’s 12:30 AM and MacLaren’s is almost empty. Ted, Lily, and Marshall all went home around an hour ago, leaving Robin and Barney to relocate to one of the smaller tables and order a third round of drinks, just the two of them. Which would normally suit Robin just fine, but Barney’s knee keeps bouncing under the table, and his grin hasn’t been directed at a nameless member of the opposite sex in what feels like days.
Robin’s getting nervous because things don’t seem right.
She’s been noticing his silence a lot lately.
So she inhales a brave kind of breath and forces out a question.
“What’s going on with you?” she asks, irritated, concerned but probably sounding insensitive because she’s never been good at this kind of thing.
He looks up at her and offers an incredulous shrug.
“What do you mean?” he answers, off the cuff and casual and all of the other things that Barney usually is on an average Tuesday night. Well-dressed. Generally awesome.
“Something’s going on with you,” she assesses, squinting, leaning closer to him from across the table and pushing her high ball around between her two palms, her expression contemplative and suspicious. “Like fifty girls have walked by this table tonight wearing some form of a tramp stamp or slut jewelry or six inch heels and you’ve barely blinked in their direction. I counted three who were bottle blondes, which I know earns at least two points on the hotness scale, and yet you’re still sitting here chatting with me about how often the Quaker Oatmeal guy would get laid in today’s modern society.”
He swallows a mouthful of beer and points at her. “I still say at least three times a week, maybe four if he got rid of his white collar and just wore the suit.”
Robin huffs and shakes her head, totally aware of his attempt at diversion. This discussion has been going on for the last half hour - way too long for any conversation including the words Quaker and Oatmeal - and she isn’t quite sure how they’re still caught up on it, why she insists on arguing with him about something so mundane. “He’s Quaker, Barney. He wouldn’t try to get laid because by definition he trembles in the way of the Lord.”
“That’s not the only thing he trembles in the way of, am I right?” he offers, nodding exaggeratedly and holding up his hand for an undeserved high five. “What is up?”
Robin eventually slaps his hand because she isn’t sure how long she can stand him sitting there like that, hand poised and waiting, and unfortunately she knows him well enough to know he’d sit waiting all night if he had to.
She vaguely registers for like the fortieth time that he has on his grey suit, the jacket slung over the back of his chair, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his tie loosened around his very white collar, a look on Barney that could make any girl’s mouth water - including Robin’s.
She sucks down the last of her scotch and shoves her empty glass toward him in irritation because she hasn't forgotten that he should've gone home with somebody by now.
“Something’s wrong with you,” she promises, refusing to be distracted.
He blows out an irritated breath and keeps his gaze on the table top, avoiding her, seemingly angry she didn’t let the subject drop the way he’d wanted it to.
“Just tell me,” she prods but his eyes don’t stray from the ketchup stains or the Budweiser label someone had probably pressed onto the worn surface years ago. “Barney,” she pleads, her voice strained because something in her can’t help it and gets severely unnerved when he’s like this, all masculine and serious and way more layered than she usually prefers to notice. She inhales a deep breath and glares at him. “Hit on someone,” she requests, none too gently.
And he looks up, then.
He pins her with a stare.
And it’s like Robin can feel her face get hot from the amount of…god, just something… that’s there. That thing she keeps trying to ignore for the sake of her own sanity because she’s been burned by him before.
“You look good tonight, Robin,” he tells her, his tone flat and serious and his stare sharp on her, pressing into her so that she suddenly has a hard time finding air in the room. She swallows, rolling her eyes as if he hasn’t just made her forget her name for a second.
“I didn’t mean me,” she tells him half-heartedly. He nods once, maybe humoring her, and takes another swig of his beer.
“I’m taking a break from sleeping with idiots,” he eventually confesses, filling the silence with that same serious-flatness, and Robin feels a chuckle bubble up out of her mouth more out of surprise than anything else.
“Are you kidding me?” she questions. She's met with stubborn quiet and so she goes on. “You’re a sex-with-bimbos-addict. And when I say addict I mean you literally cannot live without it. Literally. You’re way past support groups and twelve step programs, Barney, when exactly did you start taking breaks from sleeping with idiots?”
“The timing’s hard to pinpoint.”
“Oh my god,” she sighs, scoffing, and he shrugs for what feels to her like the hundredth time tonight.
“I just don’t like it as much as I used to,” he admits. His eyes are roaming the tabletop again as if there’s something written there that’s interesting. A drawing of the Quaker Oatmeal guy in a suit, for example.
“What, you don’t like what? Sex?” she asks, disbelieving, sure he’ll say hell no, get up, and go grab somebody’s ass. Instead he shrugs again and she knows her blood pressure is climbing higher every second he behaves like this. “You’re kidding me.”
“I’m better at sex than almost everyone I know, Robin,” he promises and she raises her eyebrows at him because…yeah she remembers, “with one exception,” he adds and she flushes, only sure she didn’t take that the wrong way because he tosses a wink in her direction that’s half-hearted but clear in intention. “So, knowing ahead of time that my randomly selected sexual partner will almost certainly be less gifted than either of the people sitting at this table right now makes things kind of boring for a guy, eventually.” His voice is subtly laced with some kind of contempt that’s either meant to accuse her of being an idiot or accuse her of being to blame. She isn’t sure she wants to know which. She shakes her head at him and picks at the label stuck to the table top. “You never get bored with sex?” he asks her, challenging.
“Nope,” she answers simply, feebly attempting to avoid an awkward exchange.
“You can honestly say that you always enjoy your one night stands with whoever you’re sleeping with? Whoever, Canadian jerks who get in fist fights over logging competitions?” he asks her, something like a dare dancing in between his words.
She sucks in some air through her teeth and pretends to shiver happily.
“Always,” she answers, trying to fill his inappropriate shoes, trying to bring some more grossness to the table because something is severely lacking and it’s making her nervous. “Three times a week,” she promises, “maybe four, if I’m wearing a suit.”
He squints.
“I bet you one hundred dollars you can go without one night stands for two weeks without missing them.”
She blinks at him because she thinks sometimes he forgets that she’s a woman.
She’s wrong, but she doesn’t know it.
“Barney, come on,” she mumbles, irritated and tired and wanting another scotch to take the edge off of this.
He raises his eyebrows at her and smirks, amused, intrigued, and the expression on his face sort of makes her feel like something is falling back into an easier place, like something feels a little more normal again. And because of that she’s almost inclined to ignore that she’s gone without sex plenty of times. She’s almost inclined to take the bet, despite the fact that it would be totally unfair to him and way too easy for her. She likes the competitive edge in his expression. She likes that his knee has stopped bouncing and he’s tightening his tie in determination. She likes all sorts of things about him right now, so she clears her throat.
“Ok,” she agrees, “we both give up sex completely for two weeks. We don't tell the others, and whoever gives in to temptation first loses. The winner picks the prize and/or punishment,” she stipulates. He scratches his eyebrow, considering it, sizing her up, and she feels her breath get shallow because he looks hungry for things and he looks even more attractive than he did before. His leg brushes hers under the table and she shifts away automatically, burned as he slowly grins like the Cheshire-cat.
“You're on, Scherbatsky,” he agrees, holding a hand out toward her, “We both keep our panties on for fourteen days straight.” They shake on it and Robin feels something like regret start to seep in even though logically this should be way more difficult for him than it is for her. “You might want to crazy glue those legs together, Robin, I’ve been around you when you’re starved for meat,” he warns, amused.
Ah, she thinks, and this is the Barney Stinson she knows and loves. Or just knows. Remembers from before, fondly, or…just…Whatever.
Fourteen days without sex. It can’t be that hard.
She figures that deserves an obvious-double-entendre high five, and then she shakes her head at her empty scotch glass because sometimes she hears his voice in her head.
And that probably means a lot that she can’t quite own up to just yet.
Chapter 2
*********************************
Chapter 3
Chapter 4 Part I, Part II
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9