This one gets very silly towards the end. It's a sitcom, after all!

The Mosby-Stinsons: Take Two

July 2023

"We'll see,"

"That means no,"

"What happened last time you went on something like that? You vomited all over Mommy,"

"If there's vomiting, count me out," Barney shudders, "Not in this suit,"

"You're probably too little to reach the height anyway," Penny teases her brother.

"No!" Luke whines. Him, Penny, Barney and Ted are in the entrance queue at the funfair. They can see the Twister, and Luke is begging Ted to let him have a ride on it.

"I'll think about it," Ted says.

"That means no," Penny repeats.

Ted swats Barney in the chest and hisses "Do a magic trick to shut them up,"

"Ah, I've got hay fever coming, guys," Barney announces, spluttering. He coughs into his hands, then begins pulling ribbon out of his mouth. Luke gapes.

"Ew," says Penny. Barney keeps spluttering and pulling the increasingly long ribbon out, and it tangles in his hands. With a final cough, he spits out a bow, and winks at them.

"Wow!" Luke squeals.

"How d'you do that, Uncle Barney?"

"Can't say," he says, gazing mysteriously into the middle-distance, "Magician's code,"

By this time, they've shuffled along so that they're nearly at the front of the queue.

"Have you got something in your mouth?"

"Nope,". Barney opens with mouth wide for Penny to inspect.

"Magic," Luke marvels, "Daddy, you weren't looking,"

"I'll have seen it before," Ted sighs. They reach the front of the line, and Luke realises, "My shoes are untied,"

Barney bends down to tie Luke's laces back up, and Ted leans into the ticket booth, "Two adults two children, please,"

"That's a family ticket then, thirty-eight dollars,"

Ted pays in cash, and the girl in the booth peels off an entry sticker. "One for you," she says, handing it to Penny, "One for you," Luke takes it, "One for Daddy," she stickers Ted, "And one for Mo-"

Having knotted Luke's laces, Barney stands up.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" says the booth girl, "Here's one for your other Daddy. You guys are so cute!"

She hands Barney a sticker, beaming excitedly.

"Actually-"

But the family behind them come forward to buy their tickets, and Ted, Luke, Penny and Barney are ushered out of the way. Barney and Ted looks at each other. Ted grins. Barney grins back. There's no need for telepathic conversation; they both know what the plan is.

"Hey, Luke, Pen- listen," says Barney, getting down to the kids' height, "You know how my brother's married to a dude, so Eli and Sadie have two daddies?"

"Like Amy in my class," pipes up Luke.

"Yeah, buddy, like that," Ted corroborates.

"Just for today, you're gonna have two daddies too. How does that sound?" says Barney excitedly.

"How?" Penny asks.

Barney throws his arm around Ted. "Meet my husband,"

Luke and Penny gasp, then giggle.

"Today you all Ted T-Daddy and me B-Daddy. Think you can do that?"

"Yeah,"

"Totally,"

"Or just shout 'Daddy' and either of us'll notice," adds Ted.

"And do it obviously, so people see. There's five dollars for each of you for every person we fool,"

"Hey, why don't I get five dollars?" protests Ted, "I'm the one who has to be fake married to you all day!"

Barney ignores him. "Team Elton John- we ride!"

The first ride the four of them go on is the ferris-wheel. The carriages are big enough for six people, so Ted, Barney, Penny and Luke in there with a middle-aged couple.

"Lemme take a photo," says Barney, taking his phone out of his inside breast pocket, "T-Daddy, get in too!"

"Yeah, T-Daddy!" says Penny, sniggering. Ted puts his arms around each of his kids and smiles for the camera.

"Say cheese!" Barney chirps. He takes a couple of photos, then passes his phone to Ted.

"Yeah, take one with B-Daddy!" Penny trills, and she and Luke jump onto Barney's lap for Ted to take pictures. The middle-aged couple don't bat an eyelid. And they still don't bat an eyelid when Penny and Luke repeatedly say T-Daddy and B-Daddy throughout the rest of the ride, and when Ted calls Barney "sweetie".

Once they're back on grass, Ted announces, "Well, that was overwhelming,"

"They didn't notice," Penny whines.

"D'you know what time is it?" Barney interrupts, "Origin story time! We need a clear backstory in order to make ourselves a more convincing gay family. Ted, where did we meet?"

"You know that- at a urinal," he answers, as Luke and Penny run ahead, chattering.

"No, not in real life- in our fake gay-dad life...oh, actually I guess 'at a urinal' works for that too. And we dated for three years and got married in Monaco-"

"Ooh, can we have our honeymoon in Paris? I wanna see the Louvre, and the Sacre Coeur-

"Nah our honeymoon has to be somewhere cool. Brazil or-

"If we're getting married in Europe we should honeymoon there," Ted points out.

"Nah, I wanna go somewhere exciting..."

Once Ted and Barney have finally confirmed the details of the wedding they allegedly had twelve years ago (wedding in Paris, honeymoon in the Swiss Alps), talk turns to the difficult matter of Luke and Penny's fictional conception.

"I provided the sperm, obviously," Barney shrugs.

"Are you kidding? They're my kids,"

"Exactly, Ted- even though you don't have a genetic link, they're still as much your kids as they are mine. You really understand what it means to be a parent," Barney says in a sickly-fond voice, gazing at Ted proudly.

"No, in our real life. Our straight life. They're my kids for real so obviously they're my kids in our gay life,"

"Right," Barney scoffs, gesturing to his face, "You marry this and don't use the genes. Get your head out of your ass,"

"They have dark hair and dark eyes- obviously they've got to be my kids,"

"Well, maybe their appearance favours the egg donor, so ha," Barney retorts.

"Well if their appearance favours the egg donor your genes were wasted, so haha,"

"Well maybe they got my brains and bone structure but the egg donor's colouring, so hahaha,"

"Dad, are you two done arguing? I need the bathroom," Luke calls.

"One second, buddy," Ted answers, then he hisses to Barney, "Fine, neither of us provided sperm- they're adopted. And dibs for all eternity on their name being Mosby-Stinson!"

"This is not going well," Ted declares when the four of them are sitting on a picnic table eating over-priced chicken wings. After all morning at the fair nobody has mentioned, asked or commented on the Mosby-Stinsons and their two fathers.

"I don't get it," Barney sulks, "James and Tom used to got stopped tonnes when their kids were little! One time they took 'em to Disneyland and Cinderella got so excited about their family, and she remembered them on the float. Eli and Sadie felt like rockstars,"

"That was years ago," Ted reminds him, "Gay dads are ten-a-penny nowadays. Right, you two?"

"Yeah. Amy has two dads. A kid at soccer has them,"

"Michael has three dads," Penny adds.

"Sean has ten dads!"

"Angelina has a hundred dads!"

They fall about laughing.

"Do you think we're not gay enough?" Barney asks Ted.

"I don't know," Ted shrugs, "I think we're pretty gay. I mean-" he gestures to Barney's blond hair, impeccable suit, and the fact that he's neatly cleaning each one of his fingers individually on his napkin, "Plus I'm an architect-"

"-And you do calligraphy,"

"Exactly! We totally are gay! You know what we need?"

"That Henri dude I split a cab with that time? He looked like he'd totally be up for-"

"We need my red cowboy boots,"

"Bro, it is never a time for your red cowboy boots! Luke, Pen, amirite?"

"You weren't pulling them off, Daddy," says Penny seriously. Luke nods.

"You've only seen photos, you weren't there to witness the full magnificence of my red co-"

"Yeah, Ted, we're not on you anymore," Barney snaps, "D'you reckon we need to start getting physical?"

"No!" protests Ted. Barney eyes him up and down, then concedes, "Yeah, no,"

"The only time today someone's thought we were gay dads was before we were pretending to be gay dads," Ted notes, "How does that work?"

"Should we be less obvious?" Barney guesses.

"And that would help because...?"

"I don't know, I'm running out of ideas. You two seem to know a lot about gay dads, got any suggestions?"

"I think you two like this idea a lot," notes Penny.

"Did Ted ever tell you about the time we adopted a baby as bros? Or the time he faked being Marshall's boyfriend and ended up hooki-"

"Shut. Up" Ted says through gritted teeth, throwing a couple of chicken bones at him.

"Hey, I pretended to be a lesbian to be pick up wom-"

Ted shoves him off the bench.

"Hey!" Barney mutters indignantly, checking his suit is intact- and then he has a brainwave. A squeaky-clean loved-up gay family isn't getting them any attention, so...

"Woah, don't turn our marriage violent! Not in front of the children, at least!" Barney shrieks, then hisses to the kids, "Play along."

Penny catches on and yells, "Don't hit B-Daddy, T-Daddy!"

"Pushing isn't allowed!" Luke corroborates.

"I'm thinking of leaving you! Soon-to-be-ex-husband!" Barney explodes. Everybody around is gawping at them, some sniggering (probably having realised it's fake) some looking shocked, and some looking utterly befuddled.

Seizing his moment, Ted jumps to his feet and screams, "I'm having custody!"

"In your dreams! Luke, Penny, come to B-Daddy, we're leaving!" Barney orders.

He grabs Luke and Penny by their arms. The kids are equally thrilled and bemused by the unfolding scene, and then Barney has an idea.

"Shout for your other dad," he whispers to Luke, giving him a little shake, "Go on, now!"

"T-Daddy!" Luke wails, turning back to Ted. Barney lets go off him and he runs towards Ted. The fact that Luke's giggling might ruin the pretence, but they don't care.

"Son!" Ted wails melodramatically, scooping Luke up.

"Keep him if you have too, he's too much trouble," Barney snarls callously, changing his characterisation somewhat.

"Like our entire marriage!" Ted spits. He storms away, carrying Luke and leaving a crowd of shocked faces behind them.

"I don't know what happened then," Luke whispers once they're a few yards away from the picnic tables.

"Neither do I, little man. But it was awesome,"

Barney texts Ted to meet up behind the bumper-cars ten minutes later.

"That- was- the most- legendary- thing- ever!" he splutters, laughing hysterically.

"Everyone thought we were crazy!" Penny chirps.

"That was crazy," adds Luke.

"Oh my God, Ted, we should get divorced more often,"

"I didn't think you could get so mad, Daddy," gasps Penny.

"God, I hope somebody filmed that," adds Barney

"Wait till we tell your Mom, she'll think we're insane," Ted says, ruffling Penny's hair.

"Tracey already thinks I'm insane," Barney points out.

"You are insane," Ted tells him.

"You're insane," Penny agrees. Luke nods, then asks, "Are you two gonna be split up all afternoon?"

"Umm..."

"Teams!" announces Ted, "I got custody of Luke, so it's me and him versus you two. Bumper-cars, let's go. Winner keeps the house."