Warmth (Episode 9: The Naked Man)

A taxi cab came to a stop beside him, throwing up a splatter of mud on to his bare legs, the tyres squealing like the do in the movies but he'd never heard in real life. Briefly, he considered making a run for it (not that he was embarrassed, Barney Stinson had nothing to be embarrassed about his awesome body) but his limbs didn't seem to work properly any more.

The door of the cab opened and Robin poked out her head. "Need a lift, tiger?" She asked, grinning.

He let out a sarcastic laugh. His heart was racing a little. Just for a second he thought it might have been a cop car and he'd get arrested. Again. More stupid community service.

"Get in then!" Robin said, more urgently. "I was worried about you. God, you must be freezing!"

"M'not," He tried to say but his lips were suddenly too thick to make words. He didn't feel cold, not in the least. He actually felt quite pleasantly warm.

Robin got out of the cab and tried to man-handle him inside. "Jesus!" She exclaimed. "You're like ice!" She knocked on the driver's window. "Hey, you? Got a blanket in the back or something?"

While the driver got out, grumbling, and popped the trunk, Robin was trying to rub his arms with her bare hands. Under normal circumstances, this would have been highly erotic and would have lead to all sorts of horizontal naughtiness but right then Barney could barely feel her. "Balls," He tried to say.

"Don't try to talk…" She murmured and she actually sounded a little scared. That was nice! Robin Scherbatsky cared about him? He tried to grin but only managed a strangled grimace as the cabbie gave her a disgusting looking (and smelling! Gah!) blanket to wrap around him. Robin managed to drag him in to the cab, the bare leather seats sticking to the skin of his legs so that it was painful to scootch over into her embrace.

"Twenty dollars for every red light you run!" Robin blurted and gave the driver his address.

There was a weird, clacking noise, like the cab had blown a tire and they were running on the rim. It gave him a headache and he wished it would stop. Then suddenly, Barney was shivering violently and he realised the noise was his own teeth chattering.

"Oh thank god," Robin said, in his ear, her arms wrapped tight around him.

*--*--*

Barney's doorman helped her get him up to his apartment but left them at the door, giving Robin a pitying look. Barney hadn't stopped shivering the entire time.

It was hard getting him into the bedroom. He weighed a surprising amount for a skinny guy. All muscle, she concluded, with a secret smile and a snigger she barely suppressed. Those kinds of thoughts really weren't very helpful right now.

Depositing him on the bed, she raided his closet (not so much a closet as a whole room, which she envied) and found nothing but suits and a single pair of silk pyjamas.

"Barney!" She shouted. "This is ridiculous! Why don't you have any regular clothes. Sweaters? You need something warm!"

He said something but the words were unintelligible through his chattering teeth. Robin hurried back to the bedroom and tried to wrap him in the single, not-very-substantial, blanket. How in the hell could she warm him up? She wondered, frantically. Put him under the shower? Give him HER clothes? She laughed at the thought, moving her hand and realising that the flesh of his shoulder had warmed considerably where she'd been touching it.

"Body heat!" She concluded with surprise.

He gave her a kind of "Qwah?" expression.

She got into bed beside him and wrapped herself as tightly around his body as she possibly could. He was shivering so violently now that she thought he might break something. What if she should take him to hospital or something? What if he had, what was it? Hypothermia?

Damn, this wasn't working. It wasn't working fast enough. She got out of bed, hearing him groan in pain as she did so and started stripping off her own clothes. She didn't think about it, she didn't agonise about it, she didn't even hate him for making her take care of him like this (well maybe just a little). She just did it.

It wasn't like she hadn't been naked with him before!

Robin caught herself smiling at the memory.

It wasn't like she hadn't fantasised about being naked with him again.

God, he was so cold. He made her shiver as she pressed herself around him, warming him, holding him until his spasms gradually subsided.

"That was really stupid," She said, when he was finally still. She assumed he was asleep.

"All part of my master plan to get you back in bed," He croaked, with a half-grin, eyes still tightly shut.

She kissed him fondly on the cheek.

"Go to sleep," She whispered.

And he did.

*--*--*

All night!

All night he'd spent, naked, with the hottest girl he'd even known, and he hadn't made a move on her?

All night!

Okay, so he'd been in no physical condition to make any kind of move on her at first but then this morning there was no way Barney Stinson should have let a hot chick out of his bed without at least some kind of sausage breakfast.

What up.

This did not happen. This did. Not. Happen.

Robin looked over her shoulder at him while she finished fixing her hair. "Will you be okay?" She asked him. He must have pouted because she gave him a scolding look. "That's gratitude for you."

"I'm sorry." Barney managed. "You saved my life, Scherbatsky."

Robin laughed that low, dirty laugh. "Again. I know. This is becoming a habit. You've got to keep yourself out of trouble. The universe really seems to hate you right now."

Ain't that the truth? He thought.

She stood up and smoothed down her clothes. She certainly didn't look like one of his regular pick-ups, about to take the walk of shame. He found he kind-of liked that.

Man, he really needed a new Bro Code article to cover this.

But it definitely wasn't going in his blog. Not banging chicks wasn't exactly something you bragged about.

Robin came over to the bed and he stared up at her helplessly.

"Call me later?" She said, and gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek. The skin burned for long minutes after he heard the front door click shut.

God damn it! He'd done it again! He'd gone out for a one-night stand and ended up catching feelings again. Robin… that girl was virulent!

Barney spent the next two hours drawing little pictures of naked cavemen and women and trying to think of something, anything, other than her.