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“You could have given me a head’s up.”
“It was spontaneous.”
“You had a ring.”
“Well, yeah, but it still happened fast.”
“Did Marshall know?”
Ted stroked the wood of the doorway, bashful, caught in a corner. He held the look of one whose happiness and excitement had recently been taken quickly, replaced by guilt. He still held the slight glow of his previous exuberance. Barney, on the other hand, looked blank. He stood there in his ridiculous suit pajamas and stared straight through Ted, waiting for an answer. Most would say he looked stoic, but anyone who had known him for a decent amount of time would know the truth- Barney looked vulnerable. He stared at Ted without shame until Ted’s eyes finally met his.
“Okay, he did. But Barney…I know how you feel about her, and I thought I would only break the news to you after we-”
Barney waved a hand in the air, turning his back to Ted as he walked to his bar, the empty expression on his face unchanging. “Never mind, never mind. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t about me.” He retrieved two small glasses before dropping a few pieces of ice in each with a pair of tongs. The sound of the frozen cubes hitting glass seemed especially loud in the night’s quiet. He poured dark liquid in each before turning back to his friend, who still hovered hesitantly in the entryway. “This is about my best friend Ted and his fiancée. Celebratory drink?”
Ted took small steps across the room before his hands finally clasped around the glass, removing it from Barney’s hand. “To the future Mrs. Ted Mosby,” Barney said, clinking the two glasses. There was a certain wryness in his tone that Ted easily caught.
“Barney. I can tell you don’t like this. You don’t need to pretend you’re happy about this when you’re not.”
Barney walked with his drink before sitting down on the sofa, carefully, so as not to wrinkle his suitjamas. “Now that is where you’re wrong, Ted,” he said, a thoughtful finger tapping the air. “Isn’t that what I am supposed to do as a friend, to pretend to be happy for you even when I’m not?”
“No,” Ted said, his tone getting increasingly more agitated. “As my friend, you are supposed to actually be happy for me, not hold some petty grudge because the rest of us insist on progressing forward in our lives while you try to plot out some superficial existence where you never develop, never change!” The more he spoke, the angrier he became, letting the increasing decibels of his voice guide his mood.
“So that’s what you think? That I’m angry about losing a bro; that I’m upset about being left alone in my ‘superficial existence’? Wow, Ted, you’re one to talk about what friends should and should not say.”
Ted’s mood softened, but only slightly. He sat down next to Barney, who looked as if he was clinging to his glass for dear life. His eyes were unfocused and elsewhere as Ted gave out a tired sigh. “Well, what else am I supposed to think, Barney?” He was tired. It had been such a long day, joyful and distressing, and he just wanted peace.
Barney’s glass slipped from his hand. He made no attempt to catch it. It did not shatter, but it bounced slightly and spun out, possibly chipping an edge. Ted startled, but Barney was unruffled as he turned his head back toward his friend, leaning in and pressing his lips to Ted’s with a petal-light pressure. Ted was even more startled, too shocked to move, but his eyes were open when Barney pulled back a moment later, slowly, taking even longer to open his own.
There was a beat of silence, then an attempt at speech. “Barney, what-”
A hand on Ted’s shoulder, then the smallest whispering of Barney’s voice, and Ted saw things as they were. He hushed as Barney murmured, “Please. Not just yet.” And his lips were overtaken again, softest kisses growing stronger as Barney leaned in, grabbing his tie, his shirt, every little button. The kisses were dangerous and hungry, taking in every bit they could as if they knew this was it. They were desperate. Ted participated in kind, and he felt a warm wetness touch his cheeks as he kissed back.
Barney was kissing his neck, Barney was nuzzling his neck, and then Barney was just collapsing into his neck. Not wracked with sobs, but Ted could feel the slight dampness in the shoulder of his shirt. He waited for a recovery, some sort of save-face or angry retort, but it did not come. Barney stayed buried in his upper body, trying to extend the moment so he did not have to face the next. Ted accepted the delay and wrapped his arms around his friend, not speaking, not ready to face whatever happened after, lips still flush and raw.