Chapter Text
When your friends with Barney Stinson as long as I have been, you start to expect a lot of odd behaviors. There’s not a whole lot Barney could do to shock me, I mean the man is basically Satan given form with silk suits and manicures.
However, today I was shocked, but not for any reason you’d think. I received a call from Barney at 3 in the morning;
“Barney, what the hell are you doing up?”
“Come to the roof.”
“What? How’d you get to the roof? Barney, no, why would I-“
He hangs up before I finish my sentence, I sigh and sit up in my bed. I stretch, stand up, put on a hoodie and (very reluctantly) go up to the roof. I walk up and am greeted by the sight of Barney taking a drag of a cigarette. His back is facing me, taking a drag and then tapping the ashes away with his fingers.
“Hey, I thought we agreed to one last cigarette.” I startle him a little, must not have heard me come up. He smiled a little, the city lights framing the side of his face just enough for me to notice. He takes one more drag and then turns to look at me.
“Ted, I’ve seen you smoke like 20 times since then. You want a drag?” Hate to say it but he has a point. Barney puts his hand out. The half smoked Newport staring at me, the familiar smell of smoke wafting in my direction. I take the cigarette and walk up to the ledge next to him. I lean against it, taking in the view a bit before looking over at Barney, his eyes quickly looking away from me as if I caught him staring.
“Is this why you called me? To have a cigarette? You know, we can smoke anytime, I don’t think asking me too at 3AM is necessary.” I ask. He takes the cigarette out of my hands and chuckles.
“Ted, I didn’t call you out here for a cigarette.” I turn and face him, his gaze still focused on the view of the city.
“Then why?” I say trying not to sound too eager to find out. He turns and faces me, he looks nervous.
Why does he look nervous?
Should I be nervous?
He doesn’t answer my question, he just kinda stares at me. But it’s not the usual look he gives me, he looks scared and a little, excited?
“Barney, why did you call me up here at 3 in the morning?” I move so I’m in front of him, he tries to avoid my gaze but ultimately just stares at me again.
“Ted I-“ He starts to say but cuts himself off. His fingers covering his mouth, I can tell he’s trying to figure out what to say. I wanna push him to say it but I wait it out.
“What if I think I have feelings for someone I absolutely, positively, without-a-shadow-of-a-doubt, shouldn’t have any form of feelings for?” He says after a moment. I’m puzzled. Barney, has feelings for someone? He’s never mentioned this before, at least not to me.
“Well, I definitely didn’t expect that. You have feelings for someone? Who?” I notice he flinches a little at the last question.
“Listen, I didn’t exactly intend on this. Especially not having feelings for you- I mean- shit.“ My eyes widen. Barney moves to the side and walks past me, he walks to the middle of the roof, and sits down on the concrete.
He meant me? HE meant ME? He has feelings for ME? What? Barney’s not gay, there’s no way in the world he meant to say that.
I walk over and sit down next to him. The wind blows gently and I notice the pack of cigarette’s in Barney’s chest pocket. I reach over and grab it, taking a cigarette out. Before I even ask Barney hands me his lighter.
“Thanks.” I say and I light the cigarette and take a few pulls. I reach my hand out and offer it to him, but before he could grab it I move my hand back. He furrows his brows a little and looks at me confused. I will admit, my curiosity is kind of getting the best of me right now.
“I have an idea.” I move a little closer to him, my knee resting on his. “Close your eyes for a second.” He looks confused at first but doesn’t hesitate.
Before I get the chance to second guess myself, I take a long drag and move my face closer to his. He must’ve noticed how close we are, he goes to say something but he’s cut off by me blowing the smoke into his mouth. He takes a sharp breath and his face goes flushed, he opens his eyes and moves his head back a little realizing I never moved away.
I didn’t think I’d say this but, he looks good when he’s blushing.
“Ted, I don’t know what you’re doing but you don’t have to do it. This is insane, we’re both straight, we’ve been friends for so long. This would screw things up so much and you know it. I’m really not sure if this is a good id-“ I don’t really know what came over me, might’ve been the fact that my judgment was clouded by tiredness, maybe it was just the heat of the moment or, maybe I wanted him to shut up but, I kissed him.
It was just a quick peck, but I did it and I didn’t hate it like I expected too.
I pulled away for just a moment before Barney’s hands grabbed my face and I was pulled back in for another. This one longer and more exploratory for us, after struggling to figure out where to put my hands I rested them on his shoulders as he moved his to the small of my back. This time, he pulls away.
“This is weird right?” He asks, his hands playing with the fabric of my hoodie. His nerves seem to have calmed down, his cheeks are pink and he’s staring with such a soft gaze.
“Very.” Barney looks over at the barely smoked cigarette and picks it up. I see him smirk a little as he re-lights it and takes a pull, he holds it in as one of his hands move to the back of my head. He moves in and I feel his lips ghosting over mine as he blows the smoke into my mouth. I feel myself blushing this time, and he does it again, the feeling almost overwhelming.
Before he can pull away I kiss him passionately. He makes a small noise in surprise as I move myself so I’m practically sitting on him. That’s when I feel his tongue teasing my lips. Well, I DEFINITELY don’t hate that. We may have been like that for 5 minutes but it felt like hours. When we finally pull away from each other we’re breathing heavily with flushed cheeks and smiles on our faces.
“Wanna move this to my room?” I barely get my words out before Barney’s pulling us down the fire escape to my apartment. The second we’re both through the window his hands are on my waist and his lips on mine. We stay there for a moment and then stumble our way to my room.
…….
I wake up in Barney’s arms. I’ll spare the details of last night but let’s just say we are both not clothed. At first I kind of wanted to sneak out, Barney style, but then I realized I can’t really escape the “I’m-Your-Best-Friend-And-We-Had-Sex-Last-Night-And-Also-I’m-Not-Straight” talk forever, plus this is my apartment. So, I just laid there for a while looking at Barney. I’ve seen him sleep plenty of times before but he looks so peaceful right now. The sunlight slightly peeking through the window onto his face, making him look almost angelic. I also look at his lips, the same ones that were kissing my lips, and other places that I may have to check for hickeys later.
“Admiring the view?” I jump, startled by my best friend’s voice. He laughs a little, his hand moving to touch my hair. “Good morning.” He says softly, his eyes closed once again.
“Good morning, you just wake up?” I move my head so my chin rests on his chest. He shakes his head;
“Been up for a little bit, you seem to really like looking at me, Ted.” He says playfully, I scoff and roll my eyes.
“Oh please, like you weren’t all over this last night.” He laughs in response and pulls me up for a kiss, it’s brief but sweet. After we pull away I stand up and look around for my clothes.
“Wanna make breakfast?” I ask pulling my shirt and pants on and throwing a pair of sweats and a shirt at Barney so he doesn’t have to wear his suit. He nods his head and gets up to change, I couldn’t really help but stare which causes Barney to get the cheekiest grin.
“Perv.” Is all he says and the he kisses me again and we walk out of my room.
“Barney? What are you doing here?” Oh shit, Lily.
“Barney’s here?” Marshall peeks out from the kitchen.
“Heyyy guys.” Barney says failing miserably at sounding casual.
I beeline it to the kitchen attempting to avoid any and all questions they have. I whip up two bowls of cereal and coffee and Barney and I sit on the couch. Lily stares at me suspiciously, it’s like she’s trying to read me. I can tell Barney noticed it too because he’s just staring at his bowl silently. I awkwardly shift in my seat, mostly because my ass hurts a little and also because I am trying to escape my body and run away. And that’s when the puzzle pieces Lily was trying to put together in her mind finally clicked together.
“NO WAY. YOU TWO DID NOT.” Lily yells with an absolutely shocked expression on her face.
“Lily, what are you talking about?” I say attempting to act confused.
“Yeah, Lily, what do you mean?” Barney asks but he sounds a lot less convincing than me.
“YOU TWO HAD SEX DIDN’T YOU? OH MY GOD YOU TOTALLY DID.” She still has the same expression when Marshall walks out of the kitchen.
“Lilypad, I’m not sure if I just heard you correctly. Did you just ask if Ted and Barney had sex? That’s crazy, there’s no way- Oh my God, Ted you have a hickey on your neck holy shit. YOU TWO HAD SEX?” Marshall drops the cup of orange juice he was holding and we both just accepted our fate. I’m quick to put my hand on my neck to cover it up, but when did Barney sneak a hickey?
“Yeah, we did… like twice.” Barney says and put his hand up which I high-five, obviously, because we are awesome.
“Guys, this is crazy! And Robin owes us 150 bucks.” Lily says also receiving a high-five from Marshall.
“So like, what are you guys now?” Marshall asks sitting next to us on the couch.
“Um- we haven’t really talked about it that much. This all kind of went down last night.” I say, awkwardly taking a sip of my coffee.
“Yeah, this is new to the both of us.” Barney says, putting one of his hands on my leg. “But, I don’t regret it and I’m glad you didn’t end up regretting it too.” I smile at him, the way he looks at me is different. His gaze is soft and he has small smile on his face.
“Aw, who’s telling Robin?” Marshall says, sassily taking a bite of his eggs afterwards.
Oh shit, hadn’t thought of that…
I look over at Barney and lightly tap his chest. “You got that, big guy.” And then I run to my bedroom.
“OH HELL NO I DO NOT.” Barney yells running after me into the room.
Just then, Robin walks in the door. “Hey guys, what’s up with them?” She asks having seen Barney running and heard the yelling from the hallway.
“We’re just gonna leave that to you to find out.” Marshall says, with an expression that can only be described as flabbergasted.
“There’s like a 50/50 chance Ted and Barney are having sex right now… damnit!” Lily says and Robin just about dies of laughter.
“There’s literally no way, very funny, nice try.” She says wiping a tear from her eye.
“Yeah, it’s definitely very funny…ha ha ha.” Marshall says deadpan.
“Oh my god I turned them gay didn’t I…” Robin says quizzically as she walks over to Ted’s door and starts knocking on it.
“If you two are having sex in there, can you at least confirm I played no role in you guys turning gay??” She yelled from the door. A few moments go by but after a bit Robin hears Barney yell back:
“Only a little bit but you deffffinitely did!” She rolls her eyes, realizing he’s being at least a little sarcastic.