Notes: Yes, title from Beyonce's Crazy In Love. And yes, I am tempted to fanvid Barney/Robin to this song now. I would say it's out of character, but I'd just like to point out that scene in whatever ep that was where Barney and Marshall have on nightgowns and Barney wants to be told stories. This is canon for me.

[Got Me Lookin' So Crazy Right Now]
by kHo

Lily sat on the couch with her bathrobe wrapped around her, scowling at the door and waiting for the knock. When it finally happened she stared daggers through the peephole at Barney until she was sufficiently satisfied that this was indeed an emergency.

Opening the door she glared at him. “Three o’clock in the morning, are you serious? I have to be at school for seven, which means I have to wake up at six, and--”

“I’ve turned into Ted,” Barney says, eyes wide, mouth tight and tense, hands jittering at his side like he’s trying to get the feeling back into them. “Ted, Lily. Ted.”

She reaches out to try and stop him from vibrating but it just worsens. “Okay,” she relents finally, grabbing his hand and pulling him over to the couch. “But no shouting, because Marshall’s asleep and I won’t have you waking him up.”

He sits for two seconds and then stands, paces, and sits again. Then he stands. And sits. And stands. And paces. And then he sits.

“Enough,” she says, grabbing his hand again and yanking him back down beside her. “Jesus, tell me already.”

He turns to face her and his eyes are glassy like he’s about to cry, or at least puke, and lets out a shuttering breath. “I’ve turned into Ted. She’s turned me into Ted.”

“Who,” Lily says, and she hands him the scotch she’d prepared as soon as she’d gotten the phone call that he was on his way over. Annoyed as she was she knew if he was calling her at two-thirty in the morning, it was going to require scotch.

He glares at her. “Kathy Lee Gifford. Robin, Lily, pay attention!”

She points at him. “Hey! What did I say? No. Shouting.”

Barney ducks his head, properly shamed. “Sorry.”

Lily nods and lifts his hand with the scotch in it, prompting him to drink. “So what do you mean, she turned you into Ted?”

“I… I…” He lets out a rush of breath, reaching up to scrub at his face with his free hand. “I have feelings, Lily.”

She laughs softly. “Yes, we know that, Barney.”

“No, I mean…” He huffs out another gust of air. “Remember that guy back in the day before I was awesome with the long hair and the hippie attitude that sang songs and cried?” He gestures to himself. “I’m turning back into him.”

“Aw,” she says, patting his knee. “No you’re not. Your hair’s still short.” She frowns suddenly. “Are you composing songs, Barney? Because if you tape yourself singing Robin is going to run screaming.”

“As she should,” he yells, and this time Lily doesn’t fuss at him. “But no, no, I’m not… I just. She makes me feel things, and… I don’t know how to feel things. I don’t remember how.”

“You just feel them, Barney,” she says, rubbing his arm as he stares hopelessly into his half-empty glass.

“No,” he says. “I can’t. I’ll ruin everything.”

She rolls her eyes. “Believe it or not, Barney, everyone goes around having feelings all day long. None of us die from them.”

“You don’t understand, Lil,” he says miserably, looking at her with those glittering maybe-gonna-cry-or-maybe-just-gonna-puke eyes and her heart breaks just a little bit for him.

She sighs and props her head on her hand. “Then make me understand, Barney.”

He swallows thickly. “I just… I have to stop. I have to get de-Ted-ified.”

She laughs. “Barney.”

“She makes me want to get married and live in a log cabin in fucking Alberta with five dogs and six kids and she and Ted didn’t work out because he wanted those things but she doesn’t and if I have these feelings then she’s going to dump me and I think I might just curl up and die if that happens and that is worse, Lily, that is worse than that guy with the long hair singing on a fucking Sony keyboard trying to win his lying bitch girlfriend back.”

And now it’s her that feels like she might cry. “Barney,” she says affectionately, hand clasping on his shoulder.

“I know right?” He laughs, this crazy little laugh that’s all over the place and not like a laugh at all. “Crazy. She’s made me crazy. I need to be locked up, Lily, seriously.” He leans forward and grabs her shoulders. “No, really, I need to be locked up!”

“Shh,” she says, grabbing his hands and bringing them down from her shoulders but keeping her grip on them. “It’s okay, Barney. You’re just a little out of your depth here. Just take a deep breath and try to relax.”

“A little?” He laughs. “A little?” Digging in his pocket he brings out a little box and tosses it into her lap. “I passed little a long fucking time ago, Lil.”

She frowns at him. “Did you know that when you freak out you curse a lot?”

He glares at her.

She sighs. “Fine,” she says, picking up the box and opening. She expects to find earrings. A bracelet. A necklace. “No.”

He nods. “Uh huh.”

She shakes her head and closes the box. “Barney. No.”

“I know!”

She clutches the little box in her hand. “Barney, you did not buy her an engagement ring.”

He nods. “On my lunch break.”

She shakes her head again. “Barney. No.”

His hands flail wide. “I know, Lily, I told you! Lock me up and throw away the key, I’m not fit for society!”

“You’ve only been dating two months,” Lily says, her voice rising to almost match his volume, Marshall sleeping in the next room completely forgotten. “Less than!”

“Yes,” he says, pointing at her. “This is what I’m saying!”

“You cannot propose to her,” Lily says, shaking her head fervently. “Can not.”

“I’m going to.”

Her eyes widen even more. “Barney!”

“No, I know!” He covers his face with his hands. “I know, I can’t, I shouldn’t, I musn’t, I will!”

She holds the ring box above her head. “No, Barney, no! I’m keeping this. You can’t have it. Then you can’t propose.”

Barney snorts. “I’ll just buy her another one tomorrow.”

Her arm falls. “You make enough money to buy two embarrassingly huge diamond rings in a week?”

He snorts again. “Please, that’s, like, a week’s salary.”

“I am being far, far underpaid.”

Lily cringes as she finally notices Marshall standing in the hallway over Barney’s shoulder. “Sorry, baby. We were trying to be quiet, but… Barney went Ted and I couldn’t control myself any longer.”

Marshall laughs, sliding behind Barney onto the couch. “Hey, buddy,” he says, grinning at Barney and putting a comforting hand on Barney’s shoulder. “You need to relax.”

“I can’t,” Barney stutters out.

“Look,” Marshall says, turning Barney to face him. “Here’s what you do. I have the solution.”

“Bash my head in with a brick? Punch a wall? Stick my hand in an electrical socket?”

Marshall shakes his head. “Tell Robin.”

Both Barney and Lily rear back, wide-eyed. “What,” they say in unison.

“She’ll dump me!”

“She’ll run back to Canada!”

“She’ll kill me!”

“She’ll dump him, kill him, and then run back to Canada!”

Marshall holds his hands up. “Barney, you go to her and you say Robin, you make me crazy. I don’t know how to act around you. You drive me insane.”

Barney snorts. “That’s crazy.”

Lily holds up a hand. “No. That might work.” She nods, pointing at Marshall and grinning. “Yeah, and you say anything I do that’s crazy you have to give me a pass on because you’re the one that made me this way.”

“Because then you can excuse all of your behavior under the guise of being crazy in love, and she can’t get mad at you because she’s the one that made you that way,” Marshall says, spreading his hands wide. “It’s perfect.”

Barney looks between the two of them. “That can’t possibly work.”

Lily nods. “It most certainly might maybe can, maybe.”

Marshall frowns at her. “Way to sell it, Aldrin.”

She frowns back at him. “Well Robin’s a huge commitment-phobe, it might not!”

“Well what other choice does he have,” Marshall asks, smoothing his hand down Barney’s back soothingly. “Listen buddy, it’s your only shot.”

Barney raises an eyebrow. “That’s really gonna work?”

“Well if it doesn’t she was gonna dump you anyway when you dropped down on one knee and proposed after five and a half weeks,” Lily says, and then, realizing what she’d said, cringes. “Sorry.”

Barney leans back against the couch cushions, sighing loudly and closing his eyes. “I’m so totally screwed.”

Marshall looks at Lily and they smile at each other. “I think it’ll work out,” Marshall says.

“Yeah,” Lily says, petting Barney’s leg. “Here, let me refill your scotch.”

Marshall covers both himself and Barney with a blanket and snuggles into the couch next to him. “Log cabin in Alberta?”

“With five dogs.”

Marshall grins. “And six kids.”

Barney smiles back. “There were deer too.”

“Aw,” Marshall says, snuggling his head into Barney’s shoulder. “I wish New York had deer.”

Lily comes back and hands Barney his drink. “I’m gonna go to bed.”

“I’m gonna stay here,” Marshall says, kissing the air in her direction.

“Night boys,” she says. “Love you.”

“Love you,” Marshall and Barney say.

Barney grumbles slightly into his glass. “I still say I’m screwed. She’s never going to go for that.”

“She loves you, Barney,” Marshall says, nodding. “I can tell.”

Barney sighs. “You really think so?”

“Yeah, I do,” Marshall says, closing his eyes. “So… boys or girls?”

“I was thinking three of each?”

Marshall nods. “Nice.”

“Yeah,” Barney says, sipping his drink. “Hey Marshall?”

“Yeah, Barney?”

“I’m worse than Ted, aren’t I?” Barney asks, looking down at his glass. “I’ve out-Ted-ed Ted.”

“Yeah,” Marshall says, laughing and snuggling closer. “But it’s good to see in you.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You’re crazier.”

Barney laughs.

“Yeah. I am.”