sapotefiction ([personal profile] sapotefiction) wrote2011-04-09 05:11 pm

How I Met Your Morning Mother, the drabble-ish thing.

Remember fandom sedoretus? How I Met Your Mother is still my big sedoretu ship, but all I've made out of it are little bits of conversation. So here they are!

How I Met Your Morning Mother.
Fandom: How I Met Your Mother / Ursula Le Guin's Hainish Cycle
Rating: PG
Warnings: Well, it starts in the middle of a conversation and never develops a plot, but I can't think of anything else to warn for.
Pairings: and quadrupalings: many.
...This might not make any sense if you're not intimately familiar with the back-canon of How I Met Your Mother.


"Okay," Ted said, "But that's kid stuff, right? Some day you're going to find the right three people, settle down, have a family -"
"Oh no," Barney said, straightening his jacket. "Sedoretus are for chumps. All "the wives are angry" this and "the Evening people aren't speaking to each other" that. Ted, I -" he gazed into the middle distance. "I am a serial monogamist."

"All right," Ted said, taking a sip of his drink.
"That's right," Barney said. "Whatever man or woman I court, I am partnered with only them and no one else. Some people call us mad - some call us perverse - but I really think it's the only way to have sex."
"I don't care." Ted said, flipping over the snack menu.
"Yeah," said Marshall, "It's not that big a deal, Barney, most people are serially monogamous for a while in college -"
"We used to call it pairbonded-until-graduation," Lily supplied. "I mean, we've all been around the block -"
Barney snorted. "Yeah, you three -" he pointed with his straw - "You three hooked up the first week of college. You guys have been practically married for like your entire adult lives."
"Yeah, practically married," Ted said, "We don't have a Morning wife. So we're basically monogamous anyway. Well -" he gestured. "Two couples and one pair of good friends." He and Lily bumped fists. "That's, like, monogamous."
Barney narrowed his eyes. "Marshall is in both of those couples. You're just three sides of a square pretending you're not all - oh, wait. Square."
"Whatever, Barney" Lily said. "Ted and I are going to find a wife, and we're going to marry her, and you can be -" she gestures "- wacky Uncle Barney who comes and visits whenever he's broken up with his -" she air-quotes "- special friend."

"If you weren't set on your monogamy thing you could be wacky Uncle Barney who half the kids kind of look like, but -" Ted shrugs. "To each their own."
"For the last time, I am not having Barney's babies," Marshall says, "I don't care how many times he asks."

---

"Robin was the one, guys," Ted says, morosely. He is laying on the couch with his head on Marshall's lap; Lily sits next to them on the floor, holding Marshall's hand.
"Yeah, she kind of was." Lily says. "She's smart, she's funny, she's tough, and she's -" her voice wavers. "Really, really pretty. But she doesn't want to get married."
"I rushed things," Ted says.
Lily frowns. "Yeah," she says finally. "You kind of did." At Ted's accusing look, she says, "But she doesn't want to marry anybody. Being slightly more subtle than a ton of bricks wouldn't have changed that, not if she doesn't want to get married, not just -" she sighs. "Not marry us."

---

"I can't believe Stella would change her mind at the last minute like that," Lily says, slumped on the couch.
"I can't believe we were about to marry her and move to her house." Marshall says. "I told you guys it was too soon, didn't I?" and then when his Evening partners glare at him, he says, "no, no, I liked her, I just didn't have, you know, hormones confusing me."
"Marshall, honey, stop talking," Lily says, and passes the pint of ice cream to Ted.

---

"I like her," Ted says. "I think you should give her a chance."
"I gave Donna a chance in college," Lily says, "And she might be interesting in bed but she's a jerk at the dinner table, pass."

---

"So, now that you and Robin are together," Lily says to Barney, "maybe you two would like to come over for some - charades?" She raises her eyebrows significantly.

"Thank god you and Marshall scared them off," Ted says later. "I am not being the weird uncle hanging around your sedoretu while Barney names all the children Barney Junior."

---

"Whose umbrella is this, anyway?" Lily says.

---

"And that," Ted says to the teenagers sitting on the couch - the redheaded boy who looks so much like Lily, the girl who looks like him, and, yes, the boy who looks like Barney - "is how I met your other mother."
recessional: a photo image of feet in sparkly red shoes (Default)

[personal profile] recessional 2011-04-09 10:26 pm (UTC)(link)
EEEEEEE.

Coherence is for other people.
melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)

[personal profile] melannen 2011-04-09 10:37 pm (UTC)(link)
!!!! This is the best thing ever.

I think I officially like it better than canon. :D (Of course, Sedoretu are pretty much canon here already, aren't they?)
fenellaevangela: pink flowers (Default)

[personal profile] fenellaevangela 2011-04-10 12:14 am (UTC)(link)
:-D This is delightful!
happydork: A graph-theoretic tree in the shape of a dog, with the caption "Tree (with bark)" (Default)

[personal profile] happydork 2011-04-10 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
Eee, that is so awesome!
rymenhild: The legendary Oxford manuscript library. Caption "The world is quiet here." (The world is quiet here)

[personal profile] rymenhild 2011-04-10 07:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Hi. I came over here from [personal profile] melannen's post. I don't know HIMYM, but I am utterly gleeful to see more sedoretu fic.

I started writing out a diagram, though, and I can't get the final sedoretu to work. If Ted and Lily are Evening, while Marshall is Morning, then Robin is also Morning, so Barney is Evening. Barney and Ted can't be in the same sedoretu, unless it's one of the exceptional ones LeGuin mentions where there are five spouses.
allchildren: kay eiffel's face meets the typewriter (⍰ and room for the holy ghost)

[personal profile] allchildren 2011-04-11 06:54 am (UTC)(link)
THIS IS VERY EXCITING.

LOVE, AN EXCITED STRANGER

(Anonymous) 2011-04-26 05:07 am (UTC)(link)
Oooooooh my God! I LOVE this, favorite HIMYM fanfic ever.
januar: woman looking to her right with a book in front of her (Default)

[personal profile] januar 2011-05-01 07:29 am (UTC)(link)
Found via google search: THIS. I never thought of Ted, Lily, and Marshall that way, but it WORKS.
tricksterquinn: Moira MacTaggert in trenchcoat & umbrella gazing seriously out of frame. It's muted & pensive & lovely. (Default)

[personal profile] tricksterquinn 2011-05-10 02:10 pm (UTC)(link)
This made me very, very happy. It kept the amazing hilarious tone of the show and made the whole thing completely logical and matter-of-fact. I love it!
thirdblindmouse: The captain, wearing an upturned pitcher on his head, gazes critically into the mirror. (Default)

[personal profile] thirdblindmouse 2011-08-09 04:15 pm (UTC)(link)
"Marshall is in both of those couples. You're just three sides of a square pretending you're not all - oh, wait. Square."

Hehe. That is a fiiiine story.
auroramama: (Default)

no wonder it took so long

[personal profile] auroramama 2012-08-15 03:37 am (UTC)(link)
So. Much. Joy! This fic is not the reason I read A Fisherman of the Inland Sea to my dear spouse, but it's a lovely bonus.

[identity profile] meatball42.livejournal.com 2014-04-21 03:16 am (UTC)(link)
NOT EVEN HALFWAY THROUGH AND THIS IS EPIC IN SO MANY WAYS
i love how you've incorporated Barney as a slut, gay-in-college, gay as 'special friends', all in this verse. you are so brilliant!!! and omg lol ,Barney who half the kids kinda look like :D
And you're right, I lack the HIMYM knowledge to understand the rest, quite, but it's very enjoyable anyway. Excellent story!