The alarm set on his iPhone beeped, and he quickly reached out a hand to turn it off. For anyone else, waking up this early would be a serious challenge, but since this was Barney, the notable acceptor of all challenges, it wasn't. He stretched, hearing the satisfying morning crack in his bones that occurred due to stiffening overnight, and he scratched the back of his neck.
He glimpsed over at Robin, who was still sleeping- snoring, more accurately in a very deep sleep as she often was this time of day. Barney figured that he'd best leave her that way for now so that she'd have enough energy for the events he had planned later in the day. He shrugged, threw the covers aside, and got out of bed.
From there, he continued with his morning routine, which consisted of a shower, brushing his teeth, and making himself some coffee- something that he'd only begun doing after Robin moved in with him, due to her early morning anger issues that generally stemmed from waking up- at all.
"Why are you up so early?"
Barney's attention was caught by the sudden words of someone who'd clearly entered the kitchen when he wasn't looking- Robin. She was standing against the wall, still visibly sleepy, her voice a little raspy from having just woken up. Her hair, having not yet been brushed down, was somewhat of a mess, and the question she asked sounded more annoyed then inquisitive.
"Why…does it matter if I'm up or not?" Barney put his cup down on the table and toyed with his Rolex, feigning distraction.
"Because it's too early for any normal person to even be existing," Robin replied almost immediately. She stifled a yawn, mentally noting the bright, obnoxious rays of sunlight blasting through Barney's wide open patio doors. Any other time, this blatant fluorescence wouldn't have bothered her, but at 7 AM, it was somewhat hurtful to her eyes, as well as just overall annoying.
"Look, are you going back to bed or not?" She crossed her arms, tapping one foot on the floor impatiently. "If not, I'm going to. No one should be awake this early, Barney. No one."
Yeah, says the ex-anchorwoman who used to force us to stay awake past 4 am, Barney mentally quipped. Undoubtedly, sleep was something not to be reckoned with when it came to Robin.
"Actually, you can't go back to bed." He let the words escape his mouth, taking a hearty sip of his coffee.
"What?"
"Well, I mean, you could. But only for, like, an hour."
Robin sighed in frustration. Clearly Barney wasn't getting something here. Something that was obviously her disdain towards early mornings, which to her, was being conveyed plain as paper.
"Barney-" she started to say, in hopes of bribing him to let her go back to sleep.
"Don't 'Barney' me," he retorted. "If you'd just go along with something once instead of fighting me every step of the way, you would probably enjoy stuff more. And I promise you, if you stay up, there will be 'stuff.'" He air-quoted with his fingers, then added "Lots of stuff." He winked, making that clicking sound to accompany it, before getting up to wash out his mug.
Robin wondered what Barney meant by that. She did go along 'stuff.' She always went by his schemes, no matter how outlandish they could be. Her only assumption was that, possibly, Barney was setting up another play for her.
"Now, you need to go get dressed and crap or I'm gonna revoke this thing I've got planned," Barney stated, adjusting his tie. Right as Robin was about to speak, he intercepted with "And no questions asked!"
She debated responding to that somehow, but she stopped herself. She didn't know where Barney was going with this, but she figured that she also would just do what he requested and not insist otherwise.
They'd gotten a cab ride about an hour later, after Barney had insisted that Robin bring along some things for what he later referred to as "just an ordinary daytrip."
In the back of the cab, Robin tousled her hair with a small comb, having not had very much time to prepare previously.
"Wherever we're going must be pretty important," she stated. "Important enough for you to remove me from my morning routine, which you should know by now is super important, Barney!"
Barney smirked, letting a scoff escape his mouth as well. "You morning routine of sleeping later than you're supposed to? Please. You can miss it one day." He stared out the window, watching the buildings blur by him.
"Easy for you to say," Robin remarked. "You sleep about three to four hours every night, by now, you probably don't even need to sleep one. You're just…perpetually jacked up on Red Bull and me."
"Hm." Barney sighed dreamily. "You is right."
He fought back every urge to begin a make out session with her right then and there. She looked, somehow, absolutely stunning, which was particularly peculiar considering that she barely had a second to primp herself before they left. But this was Robin, and Barney couldn't recount a time when she didn't look like the most gorgeous woman he'd ever seen before.
He pulled his eyes off of her and once more focused on staring out the window. Not much time remained now before they would arrive…
The trip there felt longer than it really was, and at some point along the way, Robin had, naturally, fallen asleep.
The next thing she knew, she was laying on a bed- a very familiar bed.
"Hey. Yo. Sleeping beauty. Wake up."
Barney was standing directly above her as she opened her eyes.
"Finally," he remarked. "Sleeping late really IS important to you, isn't it?"
Robin sat up on the bed and looked around, taking in her surroundings as she became more conscious. A hotel room of sorts….
The Farhampton Inn. Of course.
"Farhampton." She breathed out the words, processing what had made Barney choose this place in particular. She looked at him without saying a word, and it was as if he could read her mind.
He smiled warmly. "Robin Scherbatsky…swimsuit up."
From the inn, they headed out to the beach. Barney had on sunglasses and was proudly donning his red swim trunks, and Robin was wearing her black two-piece bikini, order of Barney who recommended that she choose that one rather than her other set, which was purple and less revealing.
The weather that day was unseasonably warm, but delightfully so at the same time. The sun was at its highest peak in the sky, radiating down to bake the sand, and there was a refreshing breeze every few minutes. Seagulls cawed above, and the tide was at its perfection- slowly moving in but not rushing.
"So no beach suit today?" Robin asked Barney. She was referencing one of his favorite ideas, the Beach Suit, a legitimate, thinly fabricated suit to be worn during swims, just to look, quote unquote, "Your awesomest on the beach- by Stinson, patent pending."
He shook his head. "Nah. It's still, btw, a great idea though." He looked down, shuffling through the hot sand on sandals which he hardly wore, since he deemed them as being "one of the least preferred items a bro could wear, and the polar opposite of sartoriality."
"Y'know, carrying you up the stairs wasn't exactly easy," he remarked.
"Yeah, neither is carrying you, but I did it the last time you got raging drunk," Robin pointed out. "Bonus points for you barfing on me."
He cracked a smile as he reminisced that time. "Ah, those were the days."
"So why are we here?" Robin's question came suddenly, and Barney realized he had never told her why.
He stopped for a minute. "Why are we here?" he echoed. "I don't know. I mean, don't you think kinda that we should celebrate our one year anniversary somehow?"
A look of amazement spread across her face. "What? No way, it's that time already?"
He nodded. "Well, sorta. Technically, we're, like, four days away from the actual thing, but I wanted to get it over with honestly. You know how much I hate extravagant romantic gestures."
She opened her mouth to say something, but he stopped her. "And no, this is not an overly romantic gesture. This is two calm, civilized adults having fun on a beach together. What more can you ask for?"
"Not much."
He moved a little bit closer to her. In a more hushed, seductive voice, the same kind that he often used on the bar girls he'd pick up way before Robin's time, he said, "Or, y'know, we could not be calm or civilized here." He threw in a quick wink for good measure.
"Ooh, sounds good," she replied hanging her arms over his shoulders as he placed his hands on her hips. One of his hands slowly started making its way up her back, seeking the tie of the top half, but just as he was about to make another move, a child rushed by, chasing after a beach ball.
"Right," Barney sighed in frustration. "This is a public beach."
Robin looked around. "Yeah, but it's not like there's a lot of people here. And besides, you know we're R-Train and B- Nasty for a reason, right?"
She put her hands back on his shoulders, but he gently pulled away. "Yeah, but I don't wanna get kicked off the beach again. You remember what happened last time."
She did indeed remember what had happened.
In 2009, when they had first started dating, Barney had also taken Robin to a beach that, if she remembered correctly, was remotely near this one. Unable to hold back, as usual, their PDA had gotten them removed from the premises, but it wasn't like it wasn't worth it. It was worth it, 100%. They were happy, comfortable, and that day, altogether didn't feel like conforming to the rules of well, anything. They were just naturally rebellious, and there was no way that anything could get in the way of their funloving routines.
Sandy, wet, and exhausted, they collapsed on top of a beach towel, all the while, Barney insulted Robin over the fact that she almost drowned, and in the same way, she mocked his nearness to choking to death on mistakenly inhaled saltwater.
Gazing up at the sun after the teasing, he said, "Can you imagine if we just started, like, making out right here?"
"Yeah, in front of everybody, that would be gross," Robin added. They both smiled, and for a few minutes, just took in the pleasure of the moment.
"Especially if we did more than just…make out," she said. "Huh."
They exchanged glances, then did just as they mentioned.
Granted, this act did get both of them banned from the beach, at least for two years, but it was undeniably one of the best memories that either of them had, even to this day.
Robin smiled as she thought back on it. "Alright, we'll save that for when we get back to the hotel room," she told Barney, gently rubbing her hand on his bare chest.
A warm breeze blew just then, buffeting Robin's hair and highlighting it in the sunlight beautifully.
"So what do, uh, wanna do first?" she asked him.
"I dunno," he replied. "I mean, I can't really swim too well, but…then again, neither can you." He turned his head, smirking impishly at her, reflecting on what had happened during their last beach outing.
"Shut up," Robin retorted, smacking him.
"Excuse me, I wasn't the one who practically drowned in three-foot water," he countered. They continued walking a little more, then Barney stopped. "Wait! I know something we could actually do that wouldn't get us kicked off the beach. That is, if you're up for it."
Robin cocked her head, then realized where Barney was going with this. "Oh. No. No, no, no, no, no, no. No."
"We're building sandcastles in the sand!" he blurted out loudly, and Robin grabbed his arm to hush him. "Would you shut up? People are gonna find out!"
"Oh, come on, Robin, you haven't built one in a while, I'm sure that your inner Sparkles side is just beggin' for it!" Barney's pleading was so delightfully childish that Robin couldn't say no. The expression on his face was similar to the one that formed every Christmas morning, every time he would open one of her gifts, every time he'd see the look on her face after she discovered the annual play he'd set up for her in ode to The Robin. It was truly irresistible.
"Oh alright fine, but just one," she said. "I'm incognito here. Full out Scherbatsky in disguise. No one can find out."
Barney nodded once and quickly. "Gotcha. As if Americans even know who Robin Sparkles is."
They knelt down on the sand where they were, and Barney began sculpting it immediately, while Robin mostly watched him.
"Aren't ya gonna help me with this?" he asked, molding the wet sand into squishy little piles.
"Nah, I'm good," she replied.
The result wasn't anything too fancy. It was mostly just a mound of damp sand with little shape. Robin must have zoned out more than she realized, because the next thing she knew, Barney was on the other side of the beach.
"Hey Robin! Check out what I did!" he announced proudly.
Carved in the sand, stretching as far as she could see, were the words ROBIN SPARKLES WAS HERE. He smiled, throwing down the stick he'd used to write it.
"Okay, this time you've gone too far, Stinson!" she yelled at him. "You know what? The Sparkles gloves are coming off. This is WAR!" She tore after him, partially only in play, and partially in authentic anger, and he ran quickly, dodging other people, food vendors, and chairs. The chase ended as soon as she tackled him with every ounce of strength in her body, letting out a warcry-like scream for added effect, and they both landed in the water.
He sat up, choking out a mouthful of liquid, and just then, a woman approached both of them.
"You're ROBIN SPARKLES?" she exclaimed.
Robin shot Barney a murderously dirty look.
"Ha! I win!" he said deviously.
"I will kill you," Robin told him.
They stayed at the beach all day long. Robin maintained busy by signing autographs for several Canadians, who, strangely enough, happened to be visiting that day.
Barney, meanwhile, occupied himself by attempting to build a giant self sculpture, which in the end, turned out better than he expected.
The sun was beginning to set, casting pinkish orange rays into the sky, and Robin joined Barney on the sand. He invitingly patted the towel next to him, and she sat down.
"So how was signing autographs for all those annoying Canadians?" he asked.
"Not fun," she admitted. "Apparently we're Mr. and Mrs. Sparkles now."
Barney nodded. "Hmm. I actually kinda like that."
As much as she hated to, Robin had to agree. "It's nice."
She looked over at Barney, his eyes glinting in the light of the setting sun. He looked relaxed, proud, satisfied. He contentedly spread his legs out in front of him, gazing towards the ocean ahead.
"Now what?" she asked him, smoothing out the creases of the towel.
He smiled. "I do have one more thing planned. And…it isn't illegal."
He rifled through his beach bag and pulled out his iPhone, then stood up holding it in one hand. "Fairly enough, you ARE Robin Sparkles, and let's be honest, joking about that cheesy music video of yours, 'Sandcastles in the Sand,' is still totally hilarious." He paused, quickly licking his lips. "But, on that same note, I also feel like that song's pretty special, cuz, I mean, not to get all Mosby here, but it WAS our first song."
"Ah yes." Robin chuckled, reflecting on the particular time that Barney was talking about. "Our song for the first time we did the thing that we didn't always expect we were going to."
"And then all our friends were shocked for like, months after that," Barney added. "And Ted punched me, and we weren't bros for a really long time." He paused. "That was all because of us! We did that!"
"Awww!" they both said in unison.
'Sandcastles in the Sand' began playing quietly off of Barney's phone, and the waves rolled in distantly, adding to the serenity of it all.
Gently, Barney took Robin's hand in his.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Robin, it's 'Sandcastles in the Sand,' clearly we're gonna dance a little." Teasingly, he taunted, "Sparkles."
She smiled, shaking her head. "Such an idiot."
"Total dork," he retorted to her. "I mean, can you even believe we're about to do this?"
"Not. At. All."
But they did. To the song, they slow danced together on the beach that day- several times actually, when the song stopped and they just started it over again. And it was, in a sense, romantic, just not in the way of annoying, overly sappy couples.
They had what they had, and they liked it that way. Robin had hardly danced with anyone before Barney, but there was just something about his boyish hyperactivity that tempted that side of her. Undoubtedly, she enjoyed every second of it, as did he.
They stayed at the beach longer than expected, practically all night in fact, and when darkness fell, it took Robin longer than it should have to start a bonfire, but once she did, they broke out the s'mores and Barney mocked her over her lack of bonfire building experience.
His face impishly gleeful, delighted in the light of the fire, she couldn't resist kissing him any longer, and the lingering flavors of chocolate and marshmallow on her lips was absolutely the most delicious thing he himself had ever tasted.
The stars above shined high in the sky. It was indeed a great night- building sandcastles in the Farhampton sand was truly legendary.