Number 69
Episode 22 - Right Place, Right Time
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It all started out with Facebook, and a bunch of friend requests from old school buddies.
Normally, Barney wasn't the kind of dude who worried much about the online world much beyond its ability to get him laid, but one name in particular stirred up some weird memories.
Matthew Panning.
The little shit who'd bullied him all through middle school. The little shit who'd (allegedly) given Sarah Taylor some venereal disease when he was, like, sixteen.
The little shit who'd once bragged that-
Whoa.
That night, Barney went home and wrote a list of 199 chick's names. He dug out his old college yearbook. He used the internet. None of the names were real except one. It was tough, thinking up nearly 200 imaginary names. He even sat and flipped through his scrapbook (his latest scrapbook), then this month's copy of Bro's Life and-
Oh!
Oh that was good.
(because, seriously, no one would really believe that he'd had sex with only 200 women)
This was better than anything he could imagine, and a perfect excuse to finally nail a supermodel. The best excuse in the world.
This was better than the old man bit. Better than trying to land a lesbian. This was the most legendary challenge ever!
Even if it was totally invented.
*--*--*
Later....
Robin leaned forward and smirked. "I was number 69?"
Barney sniggered.
"Really? You had to be that obvious?"
"Had to…" He held out his fist, which she bumped, reluctantly.
"So how many has it been, really?" She gave him the look.
"More than 200," he said, fiddling with the ripped up pieces of the list, moving them around the table.
"Gross," she snorted, sipping her martini. "Totally gross."
He smiled.
"And I was on there twice." Robin continued.
He laughed.
"Charley Sparkles? Really?" She chuckled.
He sat back in the seat, on arm flung over the back of the booth. "You were on there three times."
"Three? Dude!" She grabbed the pieces of the list from him and tried to put them back together, studying it intently. "Thea Musby? Lily Spalding? Marsha Derekson?" Robin began to laugh. "Are any of them real?"
"Maybe the fact that they all have last names should have cast some doubt on the list's voracity…" He said, solemnly.
"Oh man…" She laughed. "And the supermodel… Petra…"
He groaned. "Possibly the second most painful sex I've ever had. No, third most."
"Third most?" Robin stopped herself. "No, I really don't want to know."
He grinned.
"So…" Robin said, still looking for the list. "What's the next project for the great Barney Stinson?"
He cocked his head. "It's a surprise."
Robin looked up and quirked an eyebrow. "You need a wingwoman?"
"Always," He said, grinning and they clinked glasses.
*--*--*
The list was a lie, Robin thought. Okay, the list was an obvious lie; a fake. But that didn't mean that Barney wasn't a total skank whore. Yes he was. He was.
He… was.
But…
Robin knew he was also the most fun, the most inventive, the most ridiculous person she'd ever met. And he was hot, too. Super hot. Especially when he was talking about the bruises that gym-chick had given him.
Robin fanned herself and got ready to take a shower before work. She hadn't seen Ted all day - had just got a weird text saying he wasn't coming home. And sometimes she wondered what would happen if/when Ted did find "the one".
It would just be her and Barney - the two of their group who were just too chicken shit to commit to anything real.
Even each other.
Robin shook herself. Where the hell had that though come from?
She totally blamed her sleeping pills and his stupid list. What she needed was a cup of coffee. And to eat something that definitely wasn't a bagel.
Tonight was going to be a good one. The night when no one threw up, or caught on fire, or nearly died or had a baby…
Tonight was the night Barney Stinson didn't get any new material for YouTube.
And, okay, maybe if she was brutally honest with herself, the thought of that made her kind of sad.