A/N: Here we debut my first published HIMYM-fic. As an avid Bed-shipper, I um… Really hope you guys appreciate it. I like to think I have a pretty good handle on their characters. :L This one goes out to Elizabeth who ships this as hard as I do and will probably die of happiness if this turns out as well as I hope it's going to. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: How I Met Your Mother belongs to two wonderful men that, combined, do not equal Toni.

Stinsident

"Ugh…" Ted held his head, giving up on this whole sitting up business and deciding to spend some quality time with his hangover in bed for the moment. Who really needs to pee, anyways? Not when his head hurts this badly. He tried massaging his temples to no avail, wondering vaguely what the odd taste in his mouth was- it certainly didn't taste like stale beer, but it wasn't puke, either. Vomit free since ninety-three, right?

But that didn't answer his question. What the fuck had he done last night?

There was a rustling beside him and a shifting of weight that made the mattress creak; Ted froze, his dehydrated brain struggling to keep up with this turn of events. Fuck. He'd taken somebody home? Oh, Marshall and Barney were going to have hell to pay if they let him bring home the crazy girl at the bar again. As soon as he was fully functioning again-

"Morning," came Barney's chipper voice beside him and his eyes snapped open, twisting around to stare at the blonde man currently sitting up, completely naked, and smiling at him from the other side of the bed.

"What- Barney! What the hell?" He winced at the raspy quality of his voice and, unperturbed, Barney reached to the bedside table and grabbed a half-empty green glass bottle of beer, handing it to him.

"You sound like you could use a drink," he chuckled, ignoring Ted's incredulous look. Isn't a drink how I got into this situation in the first place-? "I hope you don't mind, but I'm borrowing a pair of your boxers. I can't seem to find mine."

Ted's eyes flew down into Barney's lap and immediately regretted it when he saw that he hadn't yet followed through on this. Shielding his eyes and sitting up jerkily, he gritted out, "What are you doing in my room?"

The other man smirked somewhat evilly, tilting his head. "Oh, you don't remember?"

"Don't remember what?" he asked warily, leaning away. Despite the fact that Barney was fully clothed he somehow still expected to have some kind of deranged magic trick up his sleeve. "And- and where are your clothes?"

"Let me tell you a story, Ted," he said, arm slung unexpectedly over Ted's shoulder. The darker-haired man flinched, making a rather embarrassingly high-pitched noise of protest as his naked body came in contact with his own, but found himself unable to pry himself out of Barney' suddenly iron grip. "It went something like this..."

The setting is MacLaren's, the usual booth, and all of their friends are laughing hysterically at something Barney, who was grinning smugly, had said. He took several bows. "I live to serve," he proclaimed cockily, catching a scantily-clad waitress' eye. She immediately swooned, the tray of drinks in her hand falling right into Barney's hands, who proceeded to hand one to each of his friends as they cheered even louder and several other patrons turned in their seats to give the spiffily-dressed blonde a round of enthusiastic applause-

"Something tells me you've embellished on this," Ted interrupted drily, rolling his eyes. Barney smacked a hand over his mouth and continued as though he hadn't said anything.

"As I was saying..."

In the wake of his applause, Barney sits back down beside Ted and slings an arm around his shoulders, raising his drink in the air with a loud toast. "To Ted on his birthday!" Everyone raised their glasses as well, clinking them together and laughing. Ted leaned onto Barney's shoulder and gulping at his own drink, face flushed.

"You're so awesome, Barney-"

"I did NOT say that," he insisted, incredulous, finally managing to pry Barney's fingers from his mouth. Looking more than a little affronted, Barney pouted and placed his hand on his hip.

"Ted!" There was no way to describe that but whiny. "Do you want to know why we're naked in bed together or not? Because there are plenty of better things I could be doing-"

"Fine! Then get dressed and go do them!" Ted's headache was beginning to aggravate him, only exacerbated by his friend's usual antics. "And- and don't say it like that. It sounds weird!"

The evil grin returned, even slyer than before. "If you think that's weird..." Ted groaned, sitting back and resigning himself to the rest of Barney's questionably accurate story.

As everyone began to settle down, Robin tossed Ted a smile, reaching over the table to pinch his cheek. "Aww. Happy birthday,Ted. I wish I could stay longer but I really need to get some sleep before work tomorrow..."

"Me, too. I'm sorry man, but this meeting is really important and I can't fall asleep in the middle of it like the last one," Marshall added apologetically, beginning to stand. Lily followed suit, an arm around his waist as she picked up her purse and slung it over her shoulder.

"And I have to go have sex with Marshall before his meeting tomorrow," she chirped, exchanging a sultry smile over her shoulder with her husband as he grabbed her ass.

"Ahh... don't worry about it!" Ted just scrunched his face up and waved it off, nonchalant. "Hey, guys- thanks for coming. This was a great birthday."

"Thank Barney." Robin glanced up in the midst of getting her things together and leaving a few dollars in tip money in the center of the table. "He's the one who organized the surprise party. He paid for everything."

Barney shrugged modestly-

"Okay, that's it. Barney, you are the least modest person I know!"

"I'm not finished!"

Barney shrugged modestly and squeezed his friends shoulders, smiling at him. "It's nothing. I mean come on, it's Ted! There's nothing I wouldn't do for this guy."

Ted returned the smile, still pink-faced and obviously tipsy. As everyone filed out the door and left the two men alone at the booth, he lolled his head onto Barney's shoulder, eyes falling shut. "Thanks, man. For everything."

"Don't thank me yet! I haven't even given you your present!" he chuckled, pushing him up into a sitting position. He fished beneath the table and his hand came back up holding a large shopping bag, shoving it into a wide-eyed Ted's hands. The shorter man immediately looked up, mouth open ready to protest, but Barney just rolled his eyes and interrupted before he could even begin. "Dooon't you even try to get out of it. It's your birthday, I'm allowed to splurge on you!"

"Barney, you really didn't have to get me anything! I'm going to feel bad-"

"Oh hush!" Snorting, Barney gestured widely at the bag. "At least open it before you decide you don't want it, geez."

Still frowning, Ted nevertheless obediently opened the bag and stared down into it, bemused. "You got me- a suit? How very out of character."

"Don't get sarcastic with me, I still have to pay for dinner," Barney threatened, but he was smirking. "C'mon. You know you want to try it on."

"But there's no way I agreed to that," Ted nodded, still clearly baffled. He once again attempted to squirm out of Barney's grip, and the exasperated blonde rolled over right on top of him in order to keep him still. Ted could actually feel his jaw dropping, eyes wide and cheeks burning. He'd never been so thankful for bedcovers before, because without them, in the way they were positioned- "Barney!"

"Will you just let me tell the story, Theodore?" They locked gazes and it wasn't long before Ted broke the awkward staring contest, coughing into his fist. Barney smirked triumphantly up at him. "So anyways, you said no but we decided to stay awhile longer just for kicks and a few rounds later..."

"Barney. Baaarney," Ted giggled, draped over his wingman's shoulder as Barney guided him up the stairs to his apartment. His face seemed to be stained permanently red with intoxication, hiccupping drunkenly. "You know what I wanna-hic!- wannado?"

An amused Barney turned to regard him with a half-smile, arching one blonde eyebrow. "What's that, Ted?"

"I wanna try on that awesome suit you got me," Ted gushed, the strong scent of liquor wafting into Barney's face and making him wrinkle his nose. He couldn't help laughing, nodding along with him.

"Finally. This ALMOST makes up for the date I had to ditch for your birthday tonight," he replied cheekily, fishing in Ted's pocket for the key as they approached his door. The other man arched slightly into his questing hand, but Barney chose to ignore this for Ted's sake and finally found what he'd been searching for, jamming the silver key into the lock and letting them in.

"Oh- you didn't have to do that..." Ted slurred, shoulders slumping with guilt, to which Barney shrugged as they navigated the way to Ted's room in the dark.

"What's one subpar vagina compared to a night spent honoring the wingman whose gotten me so many other, higher-quality notches on my bedpost?" He chuckled, proud of himself for the on-the-spot analogy and letting Ted stumble by himself to the bed. "Today is yours, Teddy boy."

When he looked back up Ted was wriggling out of his jeans-

"There's no way that I did that!" Fed up, Ted crossed his arms and scoffed, kicking his legs in a futile attempt to dislodge the weight that had settled across his chest. Barney gave him a slow, foreboding smile.

"You'd be surprised what kinds of things you do when you're drunk."

"Need some help with that?" Barney laughed, the sight of Ted trying- and failing- to squirm out of his clothes making him grin. Ted huffed in annoyance.

"Yes," he finally sighed, defeated and running a hand through his dark shock of hair with a slight pout. He leaned back to allow Barney access and the other man slid onto the edge of the bed beside him, reaching down to pop the button. As he drew the zipper down as carefully as possible his hand grazed the half-hard bulge in Ted's jeans, drawing a low moan and startling him into sitting up and jerking his hand away.

"Sorry-" he stammered, beginning to get up, and found Ted wrapping a hand around his wrist to stop him.

"No," he breathed, looking up at Barney in a new light. Before he knew it, Barney found himself being yanked down into his friend's lap, mouth opening in shock as Ted's alcohol-soaked tongue slid inside…

"And that's the story of how I ended up naked in your bed," Barney finished, flashing a shell-shocked Ted a wicked grin.

"Th-that's impossible! I'm not even-"

"You're a two-beer queer, Ted, everybody already knows," the leaner man said sympathetically, clapping him on the shoulder. Ted hoped for a moment that he would get off of him but apparently he was comfortable just where he was because he didn't make any move to leave. When the darker-haired man continued to look horrified, Barney gave a gusty sigh, shaking his head.

This finally drew a coherent response. "You- we- we did? We did?"

Okay, maybe not entirely coherent.

Rolling his eyes, Barney crawled up his frozen friend's body, coming nose to nose with him. "Really." And their lips were pressed together, and Ted's head was hitting the headboard as he tried to back away, and then Barney was pulling back with a short laugh. "If it makes you feel any better, I bottomed and my ass hurts like no tomorrow."

"I-I don't-" At a loss, Ted just stared, reaching up to touch his tingling lips. Actually, this would explain a lot of things. Like the condom wrapper he'd been steadily ignoring at the foot of the bed ("Suit up!" he could practically hear Barney saying in his head.) Like the fact that he didn't necessarily mind that Barney was sans clothing. Like the fact that he was actually getting hard now, despite the hangover, despite the humiliation reddening his cheeks.

"Yeah? Spit it out, Mosby, I haven't got all day." Barney stretched his arms over his head as he moved away, rifling through Ted's dresser drawers for a pair of boxers.

Ted swallowed hard, fighting to keep his eyes above Barney's waist as he meekly muttered, "So- so where does this leave us?"

Smirking, Barney half-turned and regarded him with amusement glinting in his blue eyes. "Where do you want it to leave us?"

Stunned, Ted laid back, breaking eye contact for the second time to stare up at the ceiling and try to calm down. How had he allowed this to happen- and why oh why was the infamous ladies' man propositioning him? He had to be joking.

But judging by the many times he paused to wince as he got dressed, he wasn't.

It was all so confusing. Barney was supposed to be straight to his brother's gay, and Ted- he was supposed to sweep some perfect woman off of her feet someday and have two kids. A boy and a girl, just like he'd been planning all along, just like he'd always dreamed of doing. Had Barney been fantasizing about him all this time? He was being remarkably cavalier about the whole issue. He couldn't recall himself ever fantasizing about a man before this, let alone Barney.

Then again, Ted sometimes got sick of his endless search for the perfect woman. Barney was his best friend. He could be trusted- most of the time.

And hell, he'd done weirder things when he was drunk. Maybe…

Maybe it was time to take a chance.

Finally, Ted sat up and gazed at him earnestly, thumbs twiddling in his lap. "Call me a hopeless romantic but- is it weird if I take you out to dinner?"

Barney's relieved grin was just the answer he needed.