One Would Call It Cheating
Summary: Barney cheats. But then, so does Ted. Barney/Ted, angst
A/N: Written to prove to my friend that Barney/Ted does in fact work. So hah.
Disclaimer: HIMYM doesn't belong to me.
Game night. It's a night that slowly disappeared but eventually reappeared sometime after the announcement of Ted's engagement. As to the reason why, nobody really knew. Perhaps it was for old times' sake—before Lily and Marshall's baby, and before Ted's fiancée, and before Barney and Robin were "Barney and Robin".
On the night in question, they had decided on poker. The game was innocent enough until Barney got up to get himself a beer and several cards out of his sleeve.
There were immediate protests from all around.
"Barney!"
"Come on, man!"
"What's with that?"
"That's cheating!"
Ted jumped a little and glanced over at Robin, who had made the accusation. His shoulders sagged in relief when he realized she was only talking about the cards.
Barney, kneeling to pick up the fallen cards, shot her a glare. "It wasn't cheating until you caught me."
Ted pondered that for a minute, wondering if it was true.
"He's right," Lily agreed. "It's not cheating if nobody catches you."
Ted felt a bit of relief at that.
"But you still did it," Marshall argued. "It doesn't matter whether or not anybody finds out, because you still cheated."
His chest tightened.
"But no one knows," Lily pointed out. "And what they don't know won't hurt them."
Relief again.
"But it did hurt them!" Marshall disagreed. "You didn't play buy the rules, and that hurts the chances of winning of the people who do play by the rules!"
And… it was gone again.
He jumped in alarm when they both suddenly turned to him with determined looks in their eyes.
"What do you think, Ted?" Lily demanded.
"Well, uh…" Ted's eyes flitted back and forth between the other members of the group. Robin just looked amused, and Barney, still kneeling on the floor, was waiting silently for Ted's answer with a strange look on his face that anybody but Ted would have questioned.
"Well spit it out!" Lily snapped. Ted flinched, fearing that she was going to hit him, but she didn't.
"Well…" Ted swallowed hard to try to calm himself. "I think that, you know, cheating is wrong and all that…" He trailed off, and Marshall's face lit up. "But," he went on, looking away from Marshall to lock eyes with Barney, "if no one knows or finds out… then what's the harm?"
Marshall's face fell, and Lily turned around to face him, grinning triumphantly. Ted paid all this no attention as he found himself unable to look away from Barney's serious gaze. Finally, the other man stood up, and Ted could look away.
No one else seemed to notice.
Not that night, but the night that followed, they both made similar phone calls. Though not exactly as follows, they were very similar, and they went something like this:
"Hey, it's me."
"Oh, hey! What's up?"
"I'm gonna have to work late tonight. I'm probably not going to be home until late, and I don't wanna wake you up, so…"
"Oh, well, that's okay. I mean, I probably won't wake up, but there's always the couch…"
"I don't know…"
"Oh… okay."
"So… I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yeah."
"Bye."
"I love you!"
Click.
That night, two men lay in bed, silent and somber. Both were fully clothed, and neither was lying in the afterglow of really good sex. Their bodies didn't touch.
Instead, they just lay there. The tension in the air was so thick that you could cut it with a knife.
Theirs was not a happy relationship. It was a strange case in which sex did not cause the cheating, but rather the other way around. They figured that as long as they were cheating, they might as well have sex.
But the occasions when they did were few and far between. Only when their relationship stopped being quite so dark, which was very rarely, did they commit sins such as those.
Outside those private, occasional moments, they didn't touch. There were no quick makeout sessions in a bathroom stall, no holding hands underneath the table in the bar when they thought no one would notice. There were no hushed phone calls in the bathrooms of their respective apartments because they were afraid to wake their significant others. There were just these moments, in small, rundown hotels, where they could lie in bed together with the comfort of knowing that the other was there.
If they had been able to tell anybody about their secret relationship (and they couldn't), they probably would have said that they were above that, that they didn't need physical contact to remain close. And the strange thing was, it was probably true. Because they had a secret bond, something that they both shared. And when they were together like this, alone, they could feel it there, an almost tangible string that linked one man to the other, and vice versa. It was almost as if they would be going against the will of whatever entity controlled their lives if they were to end their secret relationship. But, just as they knew that they couldn't end it, they also couldn't bring it out into the light of day, knowing it would blow apart not only the tenuous relationships that they held with their significant others, but probably their own bond as well.
And so they kept it silent, out of fear for themselves and for others. They kept physical contact as minimal as possible, as if afraid that any touch outside of these secret moments would cause the others to realize what they had been doing, or at least cause the two men themselves to do something that would reveal it.
Even now, lying in bed next to each other, though fully clothed, that secret rule stood. There would be no touching, no physical contact. The last thing they needed was ianother/i sin on their hands.
And so it came as not just a surprise to Ted when he felt the lightest finger on the back of his hand, but more of an alarmed shock. He looked over at Barney, who was staring at him with a serious look in his eyes.
"What are you doing?" Ted whispered, as if afraid that, even on the other side of town, someone they knew would hear them.
Barney didn't respond. Instead, he slowly sat up. Ted, feeling awkward looking up at him from his horizontal position, sat up as well. "What are you doing?" he repeated.
Still, Barney didn't answer. His one hand rested on top of Ted's, and now he slowly reached out for it with the other hand. Ted stared at him, frowning. "Barney—"
"Shh," the other man cut him off, giving him yet another of his serious looks. He looked back down at Ted's hand, as if in some kind of trance, and slowly lifted it in his own two hands, and then held it in his lap as if it were some kind of precious gem.
"What—" Ted tried again, but for the second time, Barney cut him off. He sat there, holding Ted's hand in his own, and gently massaging the back of it with his thumbs.
Ted allowed this to go on for several moments, but when Barney didn't let go, he was forced to take serious action. He pulled his hand away, and immediately, Barney's trance was broken. His head snapped up, looking Ted in the eyes.
"What was that?" Ted demanded, flexing every finger on his hand as if he was afraid that it might no longer work right.
"I don't know." Barney's voice was simple. He seemed to expect Ted to take those words as his final answer.
Ted let out an exasperated sigh. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but…"
Barney mumbled something, his voice to low and quiet for Ted to make out what he had said.
"What was that?"
Barney repeated it, a bit louder, but still not audible enough for Ted to make out the words.
"Barney, come on!" Ted exclaimed, annoyed. "Just spit it out!"
"I just wanted to hold your hand!" Barney's head snapped over, glaring at Ted. "I'm sick of lying here in bed and looking at you and not being able to touch you! It's one thing when we're out there, but I can't handle it in here! I don't get in bed with people if I can't touch them, and you… you have this stupid idea in your mind that if we do anything, whether it's sex or holding hands or even drinking together, which we've done for years and it didn't matter, it's going to expose us and everybody's going to know! Nobody's here, Ted! Nobody! It's just you and me!"
Ted stared at Barney for a long time, not quite sure what to say. Barney eventually turned away and lay down, his back to Ted. "Goodnight," he muttered.
Ted said nothing for a moment. He looked down at his hand. It wasn't harmed in any way. It wasn't turning green or falling off, and no one was bursting through the door, screaming that they were going to throw the goddamn engagement ring out the goddamn window.
He looked back at Barney, biting his bottom lip, and then, quietly, murmured, "Barney, look…"
"Never mind!" Barney snapped. "It doesn't matter."
"Yes it does," Ted murmured. He scooted closer to Barney, close enough that he could see the other man's face, but far enough away that they still weren't touching. "If it matters to you, then it matters to me."
Barney said nothing, but Ted could see him clench his jaw.
"Look, if you want to hold my hand while we're here, alone, then…" He trailed off, staring at Barney's face. "Then that's okay with me."
Barney rolled over onto his back, staring up at Ted. He searched Ted's face, as if looking for the lie in his words. Ted just stared back, doing his best to imitate Barney's serious stares.
Finally, the other man's eyes grew desperate. "Are you sure?"
"Completely." Ted held out his hand, and Barney slowly pushed himself into a sitting position. He continued to search Ted's face until he reached out and took Ted's hand in his own.
They were silent for the longest time, and then Barney smiled ever so slightly. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it."
"I won't."
Outside their little bubble, in the real world, Ted's fiancée made a phone call to Robin, asking if she and Barney wanted to do something. Robin apologized briefly, saying that Barney had to work late, but she was free.
That made Ted's fiancée pause, because wasn't it strange that both Barney and Ted would have to work late on the same night.
But she pushed the thought away and told Robin that she'd love to do something, and she knew this great club, maybe she'd like to go?
After all, this was Barney they were talking about. Ted wouldn't be interested in him anyway.
A/N: Yay, more Ted/Barney goodness. Leave a review. :)
Off to take over the world,
Crazy Girl