The Trouble with Barney (5/9)
Title: The Trouble with Barney
Author: Stablergirl
Rating: R
Author's Note: I have no idea why these two want so badly to torture each other in this fic. I promise this is not where I intended to go with it, but hey, gotta roll with the punches. I promise there will be a new chapter soon. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Not at all mine.
Chapter 5: I've got a straight, you look flushed, and these jacks are definitely wild.
“Hey, Robin, you feel like being a bro for the night?”
Ted’s voice and knock at her bedroom door startles her out of her self-induced relaxation coma, her fingers fumbling with the earphones in her ears and the stop button on her ipod, her brow furrowing in confusion as she struggles to sit up on her bed.
“What?” she asks, inhaling the scent of “amber purification” coming from the ridiculously expensive candle to her left.
“What’s going on in here?” he asks, looking around, interested, curious. She sighs and pushes her hair behind her ears.
“I’m relaxing. I’ve been really stressed out lately and I just thought I could use a little spa time without the big fat bill.”
He nods and looks at her with this pitying kind of expression that she always wishes she could punch right off his face.
“You’re listening to Yanni, aren’t you?” he asks, nodding toward the ipod she’s now wrapping with the wire of her headphones.
“No,” she responds, busying herself with securing the earbuds and shoving the ipod in her bedside table drawer.
“Yeah, you are,” he sighs, shaking his head. She rolls her eyes. “It’s ok, we all have guilty pleasures.”
“Shut up,” she finally rebukes, chuckling at him and readjusting the strap of the sea-foam green tank top she’s wearing. He claps his hands together and bounds over to blow out the candle. She watches half-heartedly as a long line of smoke emerges from the wick, spiraling toward the ceiling and seeming, in her mind’s eye, to write somebody’s name in the air.
“Get up. We’re playing poker and Marshall’s second cousin cancelled. There’s room for one more bro.”
She swallows, considering it, wondering if she has enough money in her purse to play poker the way she prefers to play it: hard, relentless, and all night long.
Yeah she did.
“Don’t act like you have to think this over, I’ve seen you play. If I didn’t know better I would think you were raised in the back room of a saloon in Texas named, like, Jack’s Shady Watering Hole,” he teases and she gives him an odd look because she doesn’t quite get the reference although she’s assuming it has something to do with American Westerns and Mr. John Wayne. Resigned, she nods at him and climbs to her feet, adjusting the striped blue and green pajama pants she’s wearing, pulling on a faded gray sweater, and reaching up to tug her hair into a ponytail. On her way through the door she grabs her wallet out of the purse hanging on the knob.
“Ok, bitches, get ready to beg for mercy,” she calls as she rounds the corner.
Then she freezes.
A card table is set up in the middle of the living room covered in a pathetic looking green table cloth and poker chips, chairs scattered around it filled with plenty of faces she wasn’t quite expecting.
Bilson, who she met once in passing when she accidentally bumped into Marshall on his lunch break.
Blauman, who she’d seen from afar at karaoke last year.
Brad, who she knows well for all sorts of bizarre reasons.
Stuart, who she actually had expected.
Marshall, of course.
…and Barney.
Why had she not anticipated Barney?
He pulls a cigar from his mouth and leans back in his chair, appraising her sleeping attire like he might be interested in removing it, and he smiles.
“Scherbatsky,” he greets deliberately. The nickname makes her jaw tighten and her breath whoosh out in an aggravated sigh.
She stares at him in his chocolate brown suit, her eyes blank and flat and unamused and trying to send him a telepathic reminder that last night she’d specifically requested he stop this.
She has no idea why she’d thought he would listen.
“Nice threads,” Brad compliments, and Marshall nods in agreement while she ignores the fact that she’s blushing.
“I would’ve dressed up but there’s nobody here worth impressing,” she counters and the group calls out a unified ooo in response. “What are we playing tonight, boys?”
“Texas hold ‘em,” Ted answers from behind her, pointing toward the seat she’s supposed to take between Stuart and Marshall. “10/20, dealer rotates, play starts to dealer’s left.”
She nods.
“10/20,” she repeats, sitting down, setting her wallet in front of her and pushing up her sleeves, “what is this, kindergarten?” Blauman laughs and she feels a pinch of satisfaction, deliberately not looking at Barney who is unfortunately sitting directly across from her at the table. “Has anybody checked Barney’s sleeves for aces?” she wonders, stacking her chips by color.
“Wow,” Bilson reacts, “look out Stinson, this one’s got your number nailed.”
Robin watches Barney laugh down at the tablecloth, shaking his head, taking a long slow pull of his cigar before he looks up at her.
Marshall starts to deal but Barney doesn't look at his cards. Neither does Robin, who is too busy looking at Barney in warning.
“Did you gentlemen know that Scherbatsky…” he says it long and wide, like a hammock is swinging between the vowels. He’s obvious, wanting to watch the irritation bubble up in her. She is determined not to let it happen, although she can feel her stomach tighten with the way he’s looking at her. “…bats, at times, for both teams?”
That tightening in her stomach grips hard and she laughs once, disbelieving, sure this is the beginning of yet another horrible evening and sure - from this verbal sucker punch - that she is not the only person angry over the night before. She’s genuinely considering getting up and going back to Yanni and amber purification. Marshall and Ted have gone motionless, glancing at her in surprise, slow to buy into anything Barney says on a topic like this.
“Wait, what?” Ted asks.
“Yeah, saw her kiss a chick last week with my own two eyes,” Barney answers.
The guys look to her for denial or confirmation and instead she looks down at her hand.
A pair of queens.
She folds.
****** Know when to hold em *******
An hour has gone by and now Barney is the dealer, his fingers fast and practiced as he deals two cards to every player. She tries not to think about what else his fingers are fast and practiced at, but she finds it less effortless these days to ignore the flashes of memory from that one certain night.
She licks her lips and accepts the beer Stuart hands her with a nod. She’s lost like seventy five bucks in the past forty five minutes.
She keeps losing because Barney distracts her from her game and practically demolishes her poker face abilities. She’s glad he’s the dealer for this hand, hoping it will give her an opportunity to actually win some money since he’s out of the running.
“Marshall, should I deal you in at all or do you just want me to keep your cards over here since we all know you’ll fold anyway?” Barney asks, sugary and mocking. Marshall offers a fake laugh and gestures for his cards. She can tell by his facial expression when he looks at his hand, though, that he’s going to fold for the fifth time in a row. “Scherbatsky,” Barney says as he shoots her cards toward her. She sighs. He smiles at her and holds onto her eye contact hard as he fires out the remaining players’ cards one at a time. “Make your bets,” he instructs.
Robin squints and looks away from him, down at her cards.
Ace, King.
A solid hand. When the play comes around to her she raises to thirty and the table’s mutterings hush, the players dropping into a focused lull.
Stuart, Marshall, and Blauman fold and -after thinking for a few thousand minutes- so does Ted. She’s left with Bilson and Brad, both of them eyeing her before they call. When they do, Brad is resigned, pushing chips into the pot unhappily.
She checks and Barney lays down three cards: Ace, two, seven.
“Your bet, Scherbatsky,” he prompts. There it is again, for the twenty-seventh time tonight -she’s been keeping count - he calls her Scherbatsky. She knew this would happen if she ever gave any hint that her last name affects her somehow. She’s angrier at herself than she is at him, but she shoots him a glare anyway, mentally ignoring the attractiveness of Barney without a coat and tie, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar and his sleeves rolled up, sloppy and careless.
“Raise to fifty,” she challenges. Barney’s eyebrows shoot up, intrigued. Brad folds.
She watches Bilson, straight-faced, unintentionally daring him, and he chuckles at her like she’s a woman, calling the bet and pushing his money into the pot. Barney flips another card.
King.
Damn, she thinks happily, this is a good hand. She avoids reacting and instead calmly looks down at her cards like she maybe doesn’t remember what they are. Everybody at the table watches her, interested, amused.
“All in,” she gambles and Bilson reels back, his grin widening even further.
“Interesting,” he comments and she can feel the testosterone in the room kicking in, pumping hard, the men attracted to the challenge and the intrigue. Silence settles the table again for a few moments while she and Bilson watch each other, his eyes flirting with her and her eyes hard on him. “So you bat for both teams, Robin?” he asks her, his voice low, and her gaze flickers from Bilson to Barney, heated and intentionally harsh.
“Sometimes,” she answers.
“You play poker that way too?” he asks, and she’s not sure what that means, if he’s asking whether she’s reckless or whether she’s equally attracted to diamonds and spades. Either way it doesn’t make much sense, so she thinks it must be a guy thing. She thinks he’s probably turned on right now.
“I play everything that way,” she answers, and the other guys laugh low or hum or suck air in through their teeth like she’s punched them all in the family jewels. She glances at Barney again and he smiles a secret smile at her, an inside joke smile, a co-conspirator-type grin that she almost wants to reciprocate.
“What do you think, bro?” Bilson asks, his head swiveling to follow Robin’s gaze and his question hanging in the air between her and Barney like the smoke from her amber spa candle. “You know her better than me, worth the risk?” he asks.
Barney’s mischievous grin falters and he squints at her, his head tilting a little and she feels that tug in her chest, that affection, that pull of wanting to lean towards him and feel the way he breathes.
“Definitely worth the risk,” he answers quietly.
For some reason water sneaks into the corners of her eyes.
“Good to know,” Bilson responds, calling her bet.
Barney clears his throat and Robin looks away, drinking her beer to help dislodge the inexplicable lump in her throat. She sees Ted looking from her to Barney and back again out of the corner of her eye and she really hopes he’s having an I don’t give a shit kind of night instead of a wait a second, what’s going on here? kind of night.
Of course if he asked her what was going on she’s not really sure, at this point, that she could answer him. She’s not sure she has any idea.
She and Bilson flip their cards and she feels a half-smile pull at her mouth when she sees his Jack and seven, knowing that unless the river is a miracle card, she’s won the hand.
Bilson curses under his breath as Barney reveals a four in the river and Robin stands to better pull all the chips in the pot into her space at the table.
“And the she-devil doubles her earnings,” Marshall announces proudly, patting Robin on the back in congratulations while the rest of the table claps, impressed, chuckling when Bilson says he has to pee and leaves the table like his ass is on fire.
“That’s the way the game is played,” she declares.
Ted nods at her suspiciously and she frowns for a second, worried, noticing the telling look in his eye because Ted, unlike Robin, has a terrible poker face, and she could read him blindfolded with two hands tied behind her back.
She swallows.
He deals.
****** Know when to fold em ******
Her hand is good, possibly even better than earlier, and she purses her lips, considering whether she should call the bet Barney’s placed on the table.
He’s betting like he has a possible straight. She has three of a kind, which would mean she loses if he has what she thinks he has, but she does not trust that he plays the game the way that most people would. He might bet like he’s got a flush when he has a pair of tens. She’s not sure.
Marshall (predictably) has already folded and Bilson has yet to return from the bathroom, telling them to go ahead without him. She figures he’s a sore loser and is sitting in there licking his wounds. Next bet is Stuart and he folds, his brow covered in sweat and his blood pressure obviously not meant to withstand a game of Texas Hold ‘em with Barney Stinson. Blauman folds, and since Brad left like three minutes ago, texting on his way out the door and probably arranging a booty call downtown, that leaves Robin.
Ted crosses his arms and waits.
She watches Barney, suspicious, tentative, not sure she wants to be left alone with him - even in a poker game. He silently dares her, despite the fact that they’re only playing for tens and twenties as opposed to hundreds or thousands. She pulls her hair out of its ponytail and glances at her cards, wondering what exactly she expects them to tell her, and then she looks up again at Barney.
She’s racked with indecision.
He leans his forearms on the table and picks up his two cards, getting them somehow to rotate effortlessly without revealing their number or face. She feels too warm and she wants to fold just so she can go get a cold glass of water or take an ice cold shower. Of course she’d have to kick Bilson out of the bathroom for that, but it is her bathroom, so…
Barney smiles at her.
“Come on,” he prompts, and her breath catches in her throat because she recognizes the seduction in the tone of his voice, “play poker with me.”
Her eyes start to water again, a strange Stinson-induced-phenomenon, and she sighs, wanting to shrug this off, reminding herself that this is Barney and, with him, nothing is ever a very big deal.
“Fine,” she accepts impulsively, “call.”
She pushes the chips into the middle of the table and Ted flips another card. Barney does not look at it, does not look away from her flushing cheeks and glistening eyes. She hates him.
“Check,” he says.
She really hates him.
“Raise seventy,” she counters.
His face doesn’t react while the rest of the table oo’s and ah’s and leans back like they can’t believe this is happening. Guys and poker, she thinks. So goddamn stupid.
“Scherbatsky, Scherbatsky, Scherbatsky,” he sighs once the table is quiet again. With each slip of her last name against his tongue she feels her pulse get a little bit faster. “You’re betting like you have a straight,” he assesses, “but you’re hesitating like you think I do.” She simply sits there. Ted taps at the deck with his thumbs. “If only one of us would just back down,” he mumbles and she squints at him.
“If only,” she responds, and even though she’s horrible at reading people, she recognizes the reference to their private bet.
“So who’s it gonna be, Scherbatsky?”
She clenches her jaw and says nothing.
“I know a few jacks who would die to get their hands on you,” he says, his voice smooth like honey dripping across the table..
She clenches her jaw a little bit harder.
“Interested, Scherbatsky?” he asks, teasing, tempting, mean and manipulative and all of the things that get her hot and uncomfortable.
“You look good tonight, Ted,” she eventually spits, her stare flipping to him for a second, just long enough to register the confused surprise on his face.
Barney’s jaw clenches and it was exactly what she’d hoped would happen. Robin feels glad.
“How much was this bet, again, Scherbatsky?” Barney asks, tense, cold sounding. She clears her throat.
“I raised you seventy. Ted, have you been working out?” she wonders and the table is eerily still, awkward, afraid to move and disturb the game of chicken happening right before their eyes.
“Nope,” Ted answers.
“Well, it sure looks like it.”
“Hey Robin,” Marshall interrupts, sounding equal parts concerned and confused, “are you feeling ok?” he asks her.
“No, actually, Marshall. I’ve been feeling a relapse coming on.” Her stare flips back and lands unforgivably on Barney Stinson. “You know, that cold I had a few weeks ago.”
Marshall hums and Stuart mutters something about his wife’s homemade tea and how fantastic it is, probably just pleased the strangeness is being filled finally with seemingly unimportant chatter. Robin, of course, would beg to differ because there’s nothing unimportant about this.
She wonders for a second how she and Barney got here.
“Gosh, what is it about your last name that is so pleasant to the ear, Scherbatsky?” Barney asks her, his voice mockingly lilting, she shakes her head. “Scherbaaatskyyy,” he drawls, “Scherbatsky. God I can’t get enough of it.”
“I actually think it’s kind of weird sounding,” Marshall comments, “but it’s Canadian, right? So…” he shrugs.
She nods and feels the water in her eyes start to seep into her line of vision. She feels the tugging in her stomach tighten its fists and she feels the blood in her veins rush up toward her ears so that it’s getting harder for her to hear anything but the thump of her own heartbeat. She knows this feeling from lost hockey games and ugly breakups.
“Call the bet, Barney,” she demands. “Or do you not have the cojones?”
Shock crosses his features, chased swiftly by regret or maybe something else, something even softer.
His anger tonight, she finally figures out, has been a cover for his other things. He feels guilty, she thinks, and he feels...
She sees that hint of emotion he has buried somewhere, that hint of respect and affection he (for some reason) mostly reserves for her, and strangely enough it makes her feel terrible. It makes her feel awful and it makes her want to go back to a week ago and do this all differently. His mouth moves and nothing comes out. His mouth snaps shut and the bones in his jaw flicker with tension.
She thinks she sees that glimmer of liquid hit his eyes, too, and she feels sorry and she thinks he’s too human for her to mess with this way.
She didn’t know, but she thinks he’s too human.
She’s been noticing his silence a lot lately.
She thinks there’s something wrong.
And suddenly, maybe narcissistically, she thinks the something has to be her. She’s what’s wrong, because he won’t look away from her and he can’t seem to say anything and his hands are sort of shaking and she’s never seen him look this…
She frowns.
“Hey, Barney,” she says and he jerks his head to the left and lifts a shoulder as he tosses his cards down onto the table, reaching back with one hand to grab his jacket as he stands. She’s shocked. She looks to Ted but he just shrugs at her, silently and angrily opting to stay out of it.
“Screw it,” Barney mumbles under his breath, and he turns and the next thing Robin knows the door is slamming behind him.
The silence settles into Barney’s empty chair and everybody looks over at Robin expectantly.
The seconds roll by.
“I guess he folds,” Stuart eventually mutters. Robin presses a hand to her forehead and inhales a deep breath, chastising herself for being this person she’s always been and for forgetting who she knows Barney really is, deep down.
She’s an idiot.
“I’m gonna go see if he’s ok,” she says quietly and Marshall nods in agreement.
“We’ll come too,” he offers, grabbing Ted by the arm and hauling him to his feet despite the stubborn and almost disgusted look Ted has on his face. They follow Robin out the door, but by the time they get outside, Barney’s long gone.
Ted tosses his hands out, swinging to the side, and shakes his head at the sky as they slap down against his thighs.
“Great, Robin,” he tells her. “I don't know what the hell that was about, but I do not want to be involved in it.”
He walks away and she just stands there.
Because she thinks this is not really about their bet and it's more about some kind of feelings she's starting to have for Barney.
...Which totally blows her mind.
******* Know when to walk away, and know when to run *******
The next night everybody is drinking at a crowded MacLaren’s, their booth occupied by some other group, forcing them to lean against the bar and drink. She hadn't spoken to Barney at all tonight, until she had, and she's feeling claustrophobic and frantic. There’s some big game playing on television that Robin doesn’t care about and it’s turned the bar rowdy and loud, crammed full of neighborhood sports fans.
Robin is pushing her way back from the bathroom, and she knows people are cheering but she can’t hear any of the noise.
The blood is rushing in her ears and her eyes are full of water and she keeps coming back to this.
This Stinson-induced insanity.
She grabs Lily’s arm, hard, and drags her outside onto the sidewalk, which is blessedly cool and blessedly empty and noticeably quiet compared to inside. Lily wrenches her arm free, annoyed, and rubs at her elbow.
“Jeez, what is the matter with you?” she asks, glancing back over her shoulder longingly toward the beer she’d left inside. Robin shakes her head and blinks away the mist clouding her vision and shifts on her feet in discomfort until Lily’s irritation vanishes because she’s perceptive enough to notice that nothing is the same.
“I just had sex with Barney,” Robin declares, the words sounding strange to her own ears, “and I think I...” she shakes her head and sighs, covering her face with her hands for a second to try to do something like regroup instead of doing this crying that she’s on the verge of. “Oh my god, I just had sex with Barney.”
Lily frowns and sits down on the apartment building’s steps.
“Uh, ok, hang on," she says, and Robin is worried momentarily that Lily might actually pass out. She's also worried she might pass out and she hopes the good people of New York are feeling generous tonight just in case someone has to carry them both inside. "Start from the beginning,” Lily prompts.
Right, Robin thinks, start from the beginning. And so Robin does.
**** To be continued... and to fill in the gaps ;-) ****
(Chapter 6)
Author: Stablergirl
Rating: R
Author's Note: I have no idea why these two want so badly to torture each other in this fic. I promise this is not where I intended to go with it, but hey, gotta roll with the punches. I promise there will be a new chapter soon. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Not at all mine.
Chapter 5: I've got a straight, you look flushed, and these jacks are definitely wild.
“Hey, Robin, you feel like being a bro for the night?”
Ted’s voice and knock at her bedroom door startles her out of her self-induced relaxation coma, her fingers fumbling with the earphones in her ears and the stop button on her ipod, her brow furrowing in confusion as she struggles to sit up on her bed.
“What?” she asks, inhaling the scent of “amber purification” coming from the ridiculously expensive candle to her left.
“What’s going on in here?” he asks, looking around, interested, curious. She sighs and pushes her hair behind her ears.
“I’m relaxing. I’ve been really stressed out lately and I just thought I could use a little spa time without the big fat bill.”
He nods and looks at her with this pitying kind of expression that she always wishes she could punch right off his face.
“You’re listening to Yanni, aren’t you?” he asks, nodding toward the ipod she’s now wrapping with the wire of her headphones.
“No,” she responds, busying herself with securing the earbuds and shoving the ipod in her bedside table drawer.
“Yeah, you are,” he sighs, shaking his head. She rolls her eyes. “It’s ok, we all have guilty pleasures.”
“Shut up,” she finally rebukes, chuckling at him and readjusting the strap of the sea-foam green tank top she’s wearing. He claps his hands together and bounds over to blow out the candle. She watches half-heartedly as a long line of smoke emerges from the wick, spiraling toward the ceiling and seeming, in her mind’s eye, to write somebody’s name in the air.
“Get up. We’re playing poker and Marshall’s second cousin cancelled. There’s room for one more bro.”
She swallows, considering it, wondering if she has enough money in her purse to play poker the way she prefers to play it: hard, relentless, and all night long.
Yeah she did.
“Don’t act like you have to think this over, I’ve seen you play. If I didn’t know better I would think you were raised in the back room of a saloon in Texas named, like, Jack’s Shady Watering Hole,” he teases and she gives him an odd look because she doesn’t quite get the reference although she’s assuming it has something to do with American Westerns and Mr. John Wayne. Resigned, she nods at him and climbs to her feet, adjusting the striped blue and green pajama pants she’s wearing, pulling on a faded gray sweater, and reaching up to tug her hair into a ponytail. On her way through the door she grabs her wallet out of the purse hanging on the knob.
“Ok, bitches, get ready to beg for mercy,” she calls as she rounds the corner.
Then she freezes.
A card table is set up in the middle of the living room covered in a pathetic looking green table cloth and poker chips, chairs scattered around it filled with plenty of faces she wasn’t quite expecting.
Bilson, who she met once in passing when she accidentally bumped into Marshall on his lunch break.
Blauman, who she’d seen from afar at karaoke last year.
Brad, who she knows well for all sorts of bizarre reasons.
Stuart, who she actually had expected.
Marshall, of course.
…and Barney.
Why had she not anticipated Barney?
He pulls a cigar from his mouth and leans back in his chair, appraising her sleeping attire like he might be interested in removing it, and he smiles.
“Scherbatsky,” he greets deliberately. The nickname makes her jaw tighten and her breath whoosh out in an aggravated sigh.
She stares at him in his chocolate brown suit, her eyes blank and flat and unamused and trying to send him a telepathic reminder that last night she’d specifically requested he stop this.
She has no idea why she’d thought he would listen.
“Nice threads,” Brad compliments, and Marshall nods in agreement while she ignores the fact that she’s blushing.
“I would’ve dressed up but there’s nobody here worth impressing,” she counters and the group calls out a unified ooo in response. “What are we playing tonight, boys?”
“Texas hold ‘em,” Ted answers from behind her, pointing toward the seat she’s supposed to take between Stuart and Marshall. “10/20, dealer rotates, play starts to dealer’s left.”
She nods.
“10/20,” she repeats, sitting down, setting her wallet in front of her and pushing up her sleeves, “what is this, kindergarten?” Blauman laughs and she feels a pinch of satisfaction, deliberately not looking at Barney who is unfortunately sitting directly across from her at the table. “Has anybody checked Barney’s sleeves for aces?” she wonders, stacking her chips by color.
“Wow,” Bilson reacts, “look out Stinson, this one’s got your number nailed.”
Robin watches Barney laugh down at the tablecloth, shaking his head, taking a long slow pull of his cigar before he looks up at her.
Marshall starts to deal but Barney doesn't look at his cards. Neither does Robin, who is too busy looking at Barney in warning.
“Did you gentlemen know that Scherbatsky…” he says it long and wide, like a hammock is swinging between the vowels. He’s obvious, wanting to watch the irritation bubble up in her. She is determined not to let it happen, although she can feel her stomach tighten with the way he’s looking at her. “…bats, at times, for both teams?”
That tightening in her stomach grips hard and she laughs once, disbelieving, sure this is the beginning of yet another horrible evening and sure - from this verbal sucker punch - that she is not the only person angry over the night before. She’s genuinely considering getting up and going back to Yanni and amber purification. Marshall and Ted have gone motionless, glancing at her in surprise, slow to buy into anything Barney says on a topic like this.
“Wait, what?” Ted asks.
“Yeah, saw her kiss a chick last week with my own two eyes,” Barney answers.
The guys look to her for denial or confirmation and instead she looks down at her hand.
A pair of queens.
She folds.
****** Know when to hold em *******
An hour has gone by and now Barney is the dealer, his fingers fast and practiced as he deals two cards to every player. She tries not to think about what else his fingers are fast and practiced at, but she finds it less effortless these days to ignore the flashes of memory from that one certain night.
She licks her lips and accepts the beer Stuart hands her with a nod. She’s lost like seventy five bucks in the past forty five minutes.
She keeps losing because Barney distracts her from her game and practically demolishes her poker face abilities. She’s glad he’s the dealer for this hand, hoping it will give her an opportunity to actually win some money since he’s out of the running.
“Marshall, should I deal you in at all or do you just want me to keep your cards over here since we all know you’ll fold anyway?” Barney asks, sugary and mocking. Marshall offers a fake laugh and gestures for his cards. She can tell by his facial expression when he looks at his hand, though, that he’s going to fold for the fifth time in a row. “Scherbatsky,” Barney says as he shoots her cards toward her. She sighs. He smiles at her and holds onto her eye contact hard as he fires out the remaining players’ cards one at a time. “Make your bets,” he instructs.
Robin squints and looks away from him, down at her cards.
Ace, King.
A solid hand. When the play comes around to her she raises to thirty and the table’s mutterings hush, the players dropping into a focused lull.
Stuart, Marshall, and Blauman fold and -after thinking for a few thousand minutes- so does Ted. She’s left with Bilson and Brad, both of them eyeing her before they call. When they do, Brad is resigned, pushing chips into the pot unhappily.
She checks and Barney lays down three cards: Ace, two, seven.
“Your bet, Scherbatsky,” he prompts. There it is again, for the twenty-seventh time tonight -she’s been keeping count - he calls her Scherbatsky. She knew this would happen if she ever gave any hint that her last name affects her somehow. She’s angrier at herself than she is at him, but she shoots him a glare anyway, mentally ignoring the attractiveness of Barney without a coat and tie, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar and his sleeves rolled up, sloppy and careless.
“Raise to fifty,” she challenges. Barney’s eyebrows shoot up, intrigued. Brad folds.
She watches Bilson, straight-faced, unintentionally daring him, and he chuckles at her like she’s a woman, calling the bet and pushing his money into the pot. Barney flips another card.
King.
Damn, she thinks happily, this is a good hand. She avoids reacting and instead calmly looks down at her cards like she maybe doesn’t remember what they are. Everybody at the table watches her, interested, amused.
“All in,” she gambles and Bilson reels back, his grin widening even further.
“Interesting,” he comments and she can feel the testosterone in the room kicking in, pumping hard, the men attracted to the challenge and the intrigue. Silence settles the table again for a few moments while she and Bilson watch each other, his eyes flirting with her and her eyes hard on him. “So you bat for both teams, Robin?” he asks her, his voice low, and her gaze flickers from Bilson to Barney, heated and intentionally harsh.
“Sometimes,” she answers.
“You play poker that way too?” he asks, and she’s not sure what that means, if he’s asking whether she’s reckless or whether she’s equally attracted to diamonds and spades. Either way it doesn’t make much sense, so she thinks it must be a guy thing. She thinks he’s probably turned on right now.
“I play everything that way,” she answers, and the other guys laugh low or hum or suck air in through their teeth like she’s punched them all in the family jewels. She glances at Barney again and he smiles a secret smile at her, an inside joke smile, a co-conspirator-type grin that she almost wants to reciprocate.
“What do you think, bro?” Bilson asks, his head swiveling to follow Robin’s gaze and his question hanging in the air between her and Barney like the smoke from her amber spa candle. “You know her better than me, worth the risk?” he asks.
Barney’s mischievous grin falters and he squints at her, his head tilting a little and she feels that tug in her chest, that affection, that pull of wanting to lean towards him and feel the way he breathes.
“Definitely worth the risk,” he answers quietly.
For some reason water sneaks into the corners of her eyes.
“Good to know,” Bilson responds, calling her bet.
Barney clears his throat and Robin looks away, drinking her beer to help dislodge the inexplicable lump in her throat. She sees Ted looking from her to Barney and back again out of the corner of her eye and she really hopes he’s having an I don’t give a shit kind of night instead of a wait a second, what’s going on here? kind of night.
Of course if he asked her what was going on she’s not really sure, at this point, that she could answer him. She’s not sure she has any idea.
She and Bilson flip their cards and she feels a half-smile pull at her mouth when she sees his Jack and seven, knowing that unless the river is a miracle card, she’s won the hand.
Bilson curses under his breath as Barney reveals a four in the river and Robin stands to better pull all the chips in the pot into her space at the table.
“And the she-devil doubles her earnings,” Marshall announces proudly, patting Robin on the back in congratulations while the rest of the table claps, impressed, chuckling when Bilson says he has to pee and leaves the table like his ass is on fire.
“That’s the way the game is played,” she declares.
Ted nods at her suspiciously and she frowns for a second, worried, noticing the telling look in his eye because Ted, unlike Robin, has a terrible poker face, and she could read him blindfolded with two hands tied behind her back.
She swallows.
He deals.
****** Know when to fold em ******
Her hand is good, possibly even better than earlier, and she purses her lips, considering whether she should call the bet Barney’s placed on the table.
He’s betting like he has a possible straight. She has three of a kind, which would mean she loses if he has what she thinks he has, but she does not trust that he plays the game the way that most people would. He might bet like he’s got a flush when he has a pair of tens. She’s not sure.
Marshall (predictably) has already folded and Bilson has yet to return from the bathroom, telling them to go ahead without him. She figures he’s a sore loser and is sitting in there licking his wounds. Next bet is Stuart and he folds, his brow covered in sweat and his blood pressure obviously not meant to withstand a game of Texas Hold ‘em with Barney Stinson. Blauman folds, and since Brad left like three minutes ago, texting on his way out the door and probably arranging a booty call downtown, that leaves Robin.
Ted crosses his arms and waits.
She watches Barney, suspicious, tentative, not sure she wants to be left alone with him - even in a poker game. He silently dares her, despite the fact that they’re only playing for tens and twenties as opposed to hundreds or thousands. She pulls her hair out of its ponytail and glances at her cards, wondering what exactly she expects them to tell her, and then she looks up again at Barney.
She’s racked with indecision.
He leans his forearms on the table and picks up his two cards, getting them somehow to rotate effortlessly without revealing their number or face. She feels too warm and she wants to fold just so she can go get a cold glass of water or take an ice cold shower. Of course she’d have to kick Bilson out of the bathroom for that, but it is her bathroom, so…
Barney smiles at her.
“Come on,” he prompts, and her breath catches in her throat because she recognizes the seduction in the tone of his voice, “play poker with me.”
Her eyes start to water again, a strange Stinson-induced-phenomenon, and she sighs, wanting to shrug this off, reminding herself that this is Barney and, with him, nothing is ever a very big deal.
“Fine,” she accepts impulsively, “call.”
She pushes the chips into the middle of the table and Ted flips another card. Barney does not look at it, does not look away from her flushing cheeks and glistening eyes. She hates him.
“Check,” he says.
She really hates him.
“Raise seventy,” she counters.
His face doesn’t react while the rest of the table oo’s and ah’s and leans back like they can’t believe this is happening. Guys and poker, she thinks. So goddamn stupid.
“Scherbatsky, Scherbatsky, Scherbatsky,” he sighs once the table is quiet again. With each slip of her last name against his tongue she feels her pulse get a little bit faster. “You’re betting like you have a straight,” he assesses, “but you’re hesitating like you think I do.” She simply sits there. Ted taps at the deck with his thumbs. “If only one of us would just back down,” he mumbles and she squints at him.
“If only,” she responds, and even though she’s horrible at reading people, she recognizes the reference to their private bet.
“So who’s it gonna be, Scherbatsky?”
She clenches her jaw and says nothing.
“I know a few jacks who would die to get their hands on you,” he says, his voice smooth like honey dripping across the table..
She clenches her jaw a little bit harder.
“Interested, Scherbatsky?” he asks, teasing, tempting, mean and manipulative and all of the things that get her hot and uncomfortable.
“You look good tonight, Ted,” she eventually spits, her stare flipping to him for a second, just long enough to register the confused surprise on his face.
Barney’s jaw clenches and it was exactly what she’d hoped would happen. Robin feels glad.
“How much was this bet, again, Scherbatsky?” Barney asks, tense, cold sounding. She clears her throat.
“I raised you seventy. Ted, have you been working out?” she wonders and the table is eerily still, awkward, afraid to move and disturb the game of chicken happening right before their eyes.
“Nope,” Ted answers.
“Well, it sure looks like it.”
“Hey Robin,” Marshall interrupts, sounding equal parts concerned and confused, “are you feeling ok?” he asks her.
“No, actually, Marshall. I’ve been feeling a relapse coming on.” Her stare flips back and lands unforgivably on Barney Stinson. “You know, that cold I had a few weeks ago.”
Marshall hums and Stuart mutters something about his wife’s homemade tea and how fantastic it is, probably just pleased the strangeness is being filled finally with seemingly unimportant chatter. Robin, of course, would beg to differ because there’s nothing unimportant about this.
She wonders for a second how she and Barney got here.
“Gosh, what is it about your last name that is so pleasant to the ear, Scherbatsky?” Barney asks her, his voice mockingly lilting, she shakes her head. “Scherbaaatskyyy,” he drawls, “Scherbatsky. God I can’t get enough of it.”
“I actually think it’s kind of weird sounding,” Marshall comments, “but it’s Canadian, right? So…” he shrugs.
She nods and feels the water in her eyes start to seep into her line of vision. She feels the tugging in her stomach tighten its fists and she feels the blood in her veins rush up toward her ears so that it’s getting harder for her to hear anything but the thump of her own heartbeat. She knows this feeling from lost hockey games and ugly breakups.
“Call the bet, Barney,” she demands. “Or do you not have the cojones?”
Shock crosses his features, chased swiftly by regret or maybe something else, something even softer.
His anger tonight, she finally figures out, has been a cover for his other things. He feels guilty, she thinks, and he feels...
She sees that hint of emotion he has buried somewhere, that hint of respect and affection he (for some reason) mostly reserves for her, and strangely enough it makes her feel terrible. It makes her feel awful and it makes her want to go back to a week ago and do this all differently. His mouth moves and nothing comes out. His mouth snaps shut and the bones in his jaw flicker with tension.
She thinks she sees that glimmer of liquid hit his eyes, too, and she feels sorry and she thinks he’s too human for her to mess with this way.
She didn’t know, but she thinks he’s too human.
She’s been noticing his silence a lot lately.
She thinks there’s something wrong.
And suddenly, maybe narcissistically, she thinks the something has to be her. She’s what’s wrong, because he won’t look away from her and he can’t seem to say anything and his hands are sort of shaking and she’s never seen him look this…
She frowns.
“Hey, Barney,” she says and he jerks his head to the left and lifts a shoulder as he tosses his cards down onto the table, reaching back with one hand to grab his jacket as he stands. She’s shocked. She looks to Ted but he just shrugs at her, silently and angrily opting to stay out of it.
“Screw it,” Barney mumbles under his breath, and he turns and the next thing Robin knows the door is slamming behind him.
The silence settles into Barney’s empty chair and everybody looks over at Robin expectantly.
The seconds roll by.
“I guess he folds,” Stuart eventually mutters. Robin presses a hand to her forehead and inhales a deep breath, chastising herself for being this person she’s always been and for forgetting who she knows Barney really is, deep down.
She’s an idiot.
“I’m gonna go see if he’s ok,” she says quietly and Marshall nods in agreement.
“We’ll come too,” he offers, grabbing Ted by the arm and hauling him to his feet despite the stubborn and almost disgusted look Ted has on his face. They follow Robin out the door, but by the time they get outside, Barney’s long gone.
Ted tosses his hands out, swinging to the side, and shakes his head at the sky as they slap down against his thighs.
“Great, Robin,” he tells her. “I don't know what the hell that was about, but I do not want to be involved in it.”
He walks away and she just stands there.
Because she thinks this is not really about their bet and it's more about some kind of feelings she's starting to have for Barney.
...Which totally blows her mind.
******* Know when to walk away, and know when to run *******
The next night everybody is drinking at a crowded MacLaren’s, their booth occupied by some other group, forcing them to lean against the bar and drink. She hadn't spoken to Barney at all tonight, until she had, and she's feeling claustrophobic and frantic. There’s some big game playing on television that Robin doesn’t care about and it’s turned the bar rowdy and loud, crammed full of neighborhood sports fans.
Robin is pushing her way back from the bathroom, and she knows people are cheering but she can’t hear any of the noise.
The blood is rushing in her ears and her eyes are full of water and she keeps coming back to this.
This Stinson-induced insanity.
She grabs Lily’s arm, hard, and drags her outside onto the sidewalk, which is blessedly cool and blessedly empty and noticeably quiet compared to inside. Lily wrenches her arm free, annoyed, and rubs at her elbow.
“Jeez, what is the matter with you?” she asks, glancing back over her shoulder longingly toward the beer she’d left inside. Robin shakes her head and blinks away the mist clouding her vision and shifts on her feet in discomfort until Lily’s irritation vanishes because she’s perceptive enough to notice that nothing is the same.
“I just had sex with Barney,” Robin declares, the words sounding strange to her own ears, “and I think I...” she shakes her head and sighs, covering her face with her hands for a second to try to do something like regroup instead of doing this crying that she’s on the verge of. “Oh my god, I just had sex with Barney.”
Lily frowns and sits down on the apartment building’s steps.
“Uh, ok, hang on," she says, and Robin is worried momentarily that Lily might actually pass out. She's also worried she might pass out and she hopes the good people of New York are feeling generous tonight just in case someone has to carry them both inside. "Start from the beginning,” Lily prompts.
Right, Robin thinks, start from the beginning. And so Robin does.
**** To be continued... and to fill in the gaps ;-) ****
(Chapter 6)