Haven't you always?
There's a moment, just after Barney declares that he wants to "bang Jenkins", when Ted's brain stutters and manages to stretch an instant of time into an eternity of Tedding-out while his mouth forms the word "What?". He blinks, everything freezes, and his assumptions about his friend tumble and crash into one another, get stuck, get broken, and whirl right around again.
Because Barney wants to bang a guy.
Barney wants to have sex with a guy.
Barney wants to nail a dude.
No matter which way Ted says it, no matter where he puts the emphasis, his heart leaps and his stomach clenches and he finds himself staring and staring for what feels like hours.
Barney wants to have sex with a man.
And there it goes, around and around again. Ted's head is filled with this image. His blood wooshes through his brain, making his ears pop. He even feels a little sick, with excitement, with fear. Because there's a secret he's never told- well, it's not even really a secret. More like a feeling he can't name. The secret, the feeling, it's the reason, it's a reason, okay, maybe it's the reason-
Ted takes a deep breath, in that frozen, expanded second, and collects himself. He starts again.
Okay, so this is Barney. Aggressively heterosexual Barney, who has created specific clauses in his Bro Code to deal with anything that could even vaguely be classified as "a little gay", right there in black and white, in case of confusion.
Confusion, yeah, Ted knows all about that. In fact, back in college while Marshall and Lily were up all night, shaking the bunk, he'd sometimes been driven out into someone else's bed. And that someone had sometimes been a someone of the same gender. At the time Ted had always felt a creeping shame about this, a shame that he'd kept it secret. He wasn't ashamed that he might be gay, or that he was sometimes sleeping with guys, but it was more that he just couldn't admit to it to his best friends. In fact, a little bisexuality might have gone a long way to helping Ted to cultivate the mature, urbane persona that he craved so desperately back at Wesleyan. Having a boyfriend would have been the height of bohemian cool.
But even to this day, Ted has a problem really shining the light of truth on himself, particularly on all the aspects of Ted Mosby that don't fit so well into the nice little package he's created of his ideal future: The wife, the two kids, the success. Falling into bed with random guys just never worked for him somehow, simply because he never let it work.
Which doesn't mean that he's lost the urge, and it doesn't mean that he's never found another guy attractive since then. Barney is plenty attractive, which is why Ted's always, very slightly, resented him.
That's a reason, the reason, (a reason, definitely), why it cut him so hard when Barney hooked up with Robin the first time.
He was a little jealous.
"I'm gonna wear Jenkins like a sock," Barney says, and Ted snaps right back into the present, realising he's been babbling and staring, and that every word out of Barney's mouth gives him another shock, another shiver down his spine.
Jenkins walks into the bar, and there's no relief, no release. The fact that Jenkins is a woman only makes things worse, not better. Because for a moment, for just one instant that felt like a year, Ted had allowed himself to hope.
*--*--*
Barney pours the schnapps into two glasses, clumsily slopping the liquid onto the coffee table. Ted watches him, as his friend pops the top button of his shirt and loosens his tie, flashing him a crooked grin.
Ted's own lips feel numb and he's pretty sure he should be more cautious right around now. He's pretty sure that he should fake taking a shot or two.
He's pretty sure that he wants to try and kiss Barney, just to see what he tastes like.
He's pretty sure that he wants to slide his hand inside Barney's shirt and let the tips of his fingers skate over his friend's stomach.
He's almost certain that the result of all this would be a black eye and a broken nose. Barney throws a mean punch.
Weirdly, Ted's at the exact level of drunk required to consider risking it anyway.
*--*--*
It gets later, or earlier, depending on which direction you approach Robin's early morning show. There's hysterical laughter and at some point Ted almost collapses head-first into Barney's crotch. Ted doesn't skip a shot, which means he gets more and more wasted, the alcohol hitting him even harder for a half hour after Barney cuts him off. His friend, who has a slightly higher tolerance to hard liquor than Ted has, manages to scoop him under the arms and drag him over to the bathroom before Ted makes too much of a mess of his couch.
In a jumble of fractured memories, Ted gathers that he repeatedly told Barney he loved him, that Barney lifted him into the bath and blasted him with cold water, and that he got a good feel of his friend's body, from slender hip to rib-cage, when Barney finally put him to bed.
He's glad that he has no morning classes because the combination of alcohol fog and a raging boner seems to incapacitate him long after he hears the soft click of his front door as Barney leaves.
It's not a walk of shame so much as a walk of laughter, as Ted can still hear Barney's chuckles echoing around his skull long after his friend has departed.
*--*--*
There's a nagging feeling of worry, when Ted wakes the next morning. He's no stranger to these nights of debauchery with Barney, drinking so heavily that he wakes up in bed with a pineapple, or butterfly tattoo. With a few of these experiences under his belt, Ted's learned to recognise the danger signs, the gaps in his memory. He also knows the futility of filling them by himself, so he dials Barney's number and winces as the ringing sound sends a spike of discomfort through his aching, dehydrated brain.
"Go for Barney."
The voice is way too chirpy, Ted thinks, which is totally unfair. "Hey man," Ted says softly. He just wants to cut to the chase. "Did I say or do anything embarrassing last night?"
He can practically hear Barney's smirk on the other end of the line. "You mean apart from the projectile vomit?"
Ted groans.
"Well, nope," Barney says, "Except I gotta tell ya, you really rock the Rambo look."
Something inside Ted relaxes. Maybe his instincts are wrong? Maybe he's just being extra cautious or paranoid because of a momentary weird reaction to what Barney said the other day?
But then, almost right on top of the sense of relief, Ted also feels disappointed. It's like he's missed his chance somehow, a window of opportunity that he didn't realize had opened until after it had slammed shut. He wishes that he was a braver man, that he'd said something, in his drunken stupor, something he could have denied that he remembered the next day.
Then at least he might have discovered what Barney tasted like. Something tingles inside him at the idea.
"Ted? You okay, Bro?" Barney asks. "You still in bed?"
Ted nods, even though Barney can't hear him, and the movement just makes his headache worse. He feels stupid, but he regrets it, god damn it. He regrets not making a move. Even though it's Barney, and he's just gotten out of a relationship, and it's Barney, and he's one of his best friends and it could ruin everything.
Ted feels stupid because he regrets what he didn't do.
"Ted," Barney sounds very far away but there's a tiny shard of memory, sparkling and reflecting and making a nuisance of itself, where Ted's fingers clutch at Barney's arm and he feels the muscle beneath soft wool and silk.
"Did I say anything embarrassing last night?" Ted persists, dully, hopelessly.
There's a beat, then an intake of breath on the other end of the line, like Barney's made a decision. "You mean, the part where you tried to stick your tongue in my mouth?"
That's when Ted remembers.
He remembers what Barney tastes like.
*--*--*
The cellphone slips out of his fingers, tumbling on to the bed, and Ted remembers that Barney tasted sweet from the schnapps, and that his lips were cool, and that he eyed him curiously when Ted broke away. He remembers Barney shoving him back onto the bed, and pacing the room.
He's pretty sure that's all that happened. He's almost certain that's all that happened.
Barney wanted to bang Jenkins, Barney's not interested in guys. Barney's blue eyes were darker than he remembered, up close, nose to nose.
Ted pulls the covers up over his head, inhales the scent of cedarwood and cigar smoke and tries to hold it in his lungs.
He's never going to live this down.
*--*--*
Barney's blue eyes are darker than he remembers, more intense.
"You're over-thinking this," he says, from Ted's bedside.
Ted has no idea how his friend got back into the apartment with the door locked but he clings to the romantic notion of Barney-as-a-cat-burglar because it's kind of hot. Now that he's allowed himself to think about Barney like this, to feel this, to act openly, Ted can't seem to stop the fantasies from popping up.
Barney yanks the covers down, over Ted's shoulders, a little angrily, a little desperately, his fingers dragging over Ted's shoulder. "Stop over-thinking this!" Barney tells him. But there's touching. Ted quite likes the touching and wouldn't mind if there was more of it.
The warm breath on his cheek startles him and he flinches, just a little when he realizes just how near they are, how close they are. Ted kicks himself free of the covers and pulls Barney down, unbalancing him so that he lands heavily on top of him. Unwilling to give Barney a moment to recover he rolls the other man on to his back, pressing him down against the tangle of sheets and bending his head, fixing his lips into the base of Barney's throat, just above the collar of his shirt.
His friend's pulse leaps beneath his tongue as he drags it over the freshly shaved skin under his jaw.
"Crap! What are we doing?" Barney groans.
"Now who's over-thinking?" Ted laughs, pulling at buttons and his zipper and spreading his fingers over warm, firm flesh.
"Not sayin' I want you to stop, Bro!" Barney squeaks, and Ted almost pauses then, almost stops to seek permission, validation.
But he regrets the things he doesn't do.
Barney's hands yank uselessly at Ted's tshirt, where it rides up, then slide across the small of his back. While Ted moves lower, his mouth fixing on a nipple, sucking it into a peak, the tips of Barney's fingers circle higher, until he can pull the thin material over Ted's shoulders and head.
"Your hair's a mess," Barney observes, breathlessly. It's a protest of sorts, which is cut off when Ted's mouth meets velvet-hard column between his legs. He holds Barney there, digging his fingers into the soft-sharp hipbones, and breaths him in, allowing the flat of his tongue to slide over his friend's dick. It's not like he's had a ton of practice but he knows instinctively what to do, how to suck, how to stroke and touch and stroke again to make Barney crazy. Ted's own hips shift, rolling his own erection against the mattress, feeding the ache that grows, tightens and grumbles greedily inside of him.
Barney gasps and then growls a little and then lets out an adorable gurgle, shooting warm liquid pleasure which Ted swallows almost exploding into the mattress himself.
He carefully disengages, crawling back up the bed and takes in Barney's expression.
"Oh man," he says with a crazy confidence that Barney's shocked-face gives him. "You look like you've never been blown before."
Barney just shakes his head, for once lost for words.
Ted smiles.
He doesn't regret it. Not one bit.