The Walker Tracking System, Deleted Scene: Condom Shopping
Shopping in the Walker-Parkman-Suresh household was only slightly less a hectic affair now, a good seven years after they had all been thrown together than it had been when they’d first moved in to his father‘s old apartment. This had to do with the fact that their had been no change to their basic natures; Matt still considered frozen food a viable source of nutrition, Mohinder still instead on buying as much organic food as possible, and Molly still charmed every person within earshot. So what if their arguments were half telepathic now? So what if Matt’s dyslexia was less of a problem now than it had been a few short years ago? So what if Molly’s version of charm now included what both of them considered to be a little too much flirtatious banter? It was the same song that it always had been; the tune was just a little different.
“Mohinder, even you can’t argue with frozen vegetables,” Matt whined. “It’s not vegetable pizza, it’s not vegetable lean pockets, it’s just plain vegetables. Only frozen!”
The first time they’d had this argument had been right after Matt had come home from the hospital. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to be walking farther than from the bed to the bathroom; Molly had insisted that he follow the doctor’s orders and they’d ended up getting one of those scooter carts, much to both of their delights. He’d looked over at him incredulously from his seat, holding up the pizza box to illustrate his point:
“See, it’s vegetable pizza. Seven kinds of vegetables- peppers, onions, there’s even spinach! You can’t say no to spinach.”
“Yes, I can. Because it’s vegetable pizza,” Mohinder had turned the box over and read the ingredients with mock surprise. “Wow, methylcellulose and partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil. That sounds very healthy to me.”
Matt had snatched the box back with a glare. “Yes, but it isn’t deep-fried or made completely out of high fructose corn syrup, and I might be able to make it without burning the apartment down.”
“Yes, I suppose you may be able to manage taking the pizza out of the box, placing it in the oven, and taking it out at the proper time, but that doesn’t change the fact that it still doesn’t meet the proper nutritional standards for an eight-year-old girl,” Mohinder had explained impatiently
“Neither is eating charcoal, or pretty much every sort of take-out imaginable. But I guarantee you, if we don’t get something low-initiative and pre-prepared, that’s all Molly’s going to get.”
Mohinder had looked at Molly, who seemed to be plotting the best way to sneak a gallon of chocolate-fudge brownie ice cream into the cart. “Someone’s not happy about needing to watch his cholesterol intake.”
Matt had spared half a second to give him a look of pure distain, then turned to Molly and mocked him with “Someone’s a pretentious bastard.”
Mohinder had wheeled on him, horrified. “You can’t use that word in front of Molly!”
Matt had had the grace to look chagrined. “I- yes, you’re right, I’m sorry.”
He had put the pizza box back in the freezer, and Molly had turned around to face the two of the and said, frowning “What does that word mean?”
Matt had looked about ready to have a heart attack and Mohinder had been right along with him, when she’d added, quickly, “Not the b-word. ‘Pretentious’. What does that mean?”
Mohinder had given himself a few minutes to get his heart rate back down under control, giving Matt the opportunity to jump in, answering “It means being a show-off.”
“If they really were just vegetables,” Mohinder sighed, snapping back into the present. He saw the slight exaggeration of the smile lines at the corners of Matt’s mouth, and knew that his stroll down memory lane hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Rather than genetically enhanced carbohydrates spray painted green, I‘d say yes.”
“Since when do you have a problem with anything genetically enhanced?” Matt balked, wheeling around to face Molly. “Hey Molly-doll, Mohinder-”
Molly didn’t hear, as she was all the way at the other end of the aisle, engaged in what looked to be very deep and serious conversation with Farid al-Mumeet, her boyfriend of the week.
Except, Mohinder though with a sudden frown, he wasn’t exactly her boyfriend of the week anymore, was he? More like her boyfriend of the past fifteen weeks, with no end in sight coming.
“Is he stalking her?” Matt hissed.
“No,” Mohinder reassured him. “He simply works here on Thursdays.”
“Doesn’t he already work at the Laundromat? And the dojo?” Matt groused. “What does he need a third job for?”
“This was his first one, I believe,” Mohinder countered softly. They watched as conversation between the two teens had turned away from serious, and into silly and laughter-studded. “Molly helped him get the job at the dojo, and he’s the reason we no longer go to Ms. Chen’s.”
“So he is stalking her!” Matt exclaimed.
“Actually, I think she’s stalking him.”
“Mohinder,” Matt whined. “Could you stop being reasonable and let me hold onto my delusions that Molly’s never going to develop any sort of romantic interest?”
Mohinder looked up at him. “Molly’s been having these crushes since she was ten. She’s all of fifteen now; if anything, her romantic interests are bound to escalate with all those hormones floating about.”
There was a second of extremely awkward silence, as the pair of them realized what, exactly, was implied in that sentence.
“Oh, God, you don’t think she’s having sex yet, do you?” Matt whispered, horrified.
“I-I-I don’t know,” Mohinder spluttered. She was only fifteen, but then again, she had always been precocious. Why shouldn’t that translate into her sexuality as well? “You’re the mind reader.”
“Molly can think circles around me,” Matt groaned. “And I’d rather not look into her head these day, to be honest. Every time I take a peek she obsessing about her schoolwork, Micah’s college applications, Elle’s behavior, Emma’s manifestation, Simon‘s drinking problem, Monty‘s sexual identity crises... It’s enough to give me an anxiety attack, at times.”
Mohinder felt a small pang of guilt. He and Matt had always been shouldering everyone else’s problems, often to their own detriment, and it seemed as though they had doomed Molly to inherit that particular flaw in spades. Which, he supposed, also implied that she’d pick up on their coping mechanism as well, and fall madly in love with someone in the face of all logic and convention.
“So you think she’s-”
“I think we’re going to be facing the scenario in the near future, yes,” Mohinder cut him off. “I also think we shouldn’t send too much time worrying about it. Molly is a mature, responsible young woman now, and-”
“Is it just me, or they standing a little close together?” Matt interrupted, his voice going very low.
Mohinder back around to face the teens, who were displaying a disturbing lack of personal space, and dear God, they weren’t actually going to-
“Molly!” he shouted, loudly and suddenly enough that heads turned in his direction from throughout the store. “You- It’s five-fifty seven! We’ve got to go!”
“Where?” Molly asked, not moving, although he was gratified to see Farid back a respectable three inches away from her.
“To go!” he repeated, frantically shoving the previously offensive vegetables into the cart.
Matt teased him, smugness evident even without the dubious benefits of telepathy.
watch her be a mature, responsible young woman.> Mohinder finished firmly.
~*~
Seeing as they didn’t exactly finish their shopping trip, it came as no surprise to Matt when Mohinder slipped his coat back on a picked his keys up from the counter after bidding Molly goodnight.
“Could you use some company?” He asked, picking himself up from the couch.
“If you want to,” Mohinder shrugged.
“Oh, I want to. Elle is going to walk through the door in about thirty seconds,” Matt warned him, grabbing his own jacket from the back of the kitchen chair.
Sure enough, no sooner had to words left his mouth than the door flung open and Elle strutted in. “Hellooooo, House of M!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
“Hello Elle,” Mohinder sighed.
Matt winced. “Do you have to be so loud?”
“Oh, come on, it’s no fun if you’re quiet,” Elle snorted. Suddenly, a stream of water shot out from behind the two men and hit Elle squarely in the chest. The both wheeled around, only to find Molly holding a water pistol and looking grim.
“What was that for?” Elle spluttered.
“Pre-emptive strike,” Molly explained. “I ate the last of the popcorn while you were gone.”
“You what!” Elle shouted.
In lieu of an answer, Molly darted back inside her room; Elle pushed past Matt and Mohinder in pursuit.
“We’re going out,” Mohinder called out as Elle forced her way inside. “Don’t do anything that will destroy the house or kill anything.”
“And no serious maiming! Or prank phone calls! Or leaving the house!” Matt added. “We’re locking the door behind us, make sure the windows are closed too!”
“Sure Dads!” Molly called over Elle’s indignant cries of “You freaking finished the popcorn!”
Matt and Mohinder exchanged slightly nervous glances as they left the house. “They’ll be alright, you think, right?”
“We’re only going out to the grocery store,” Matt assured the other man, and himself. “I think they can manage to stay out of trouble for half an hour or so. Besides, Molly can see any sort of danger coming their way, and even with her shocking ability temporarily on the fritz, Elle can handle most of the fighting.”
“Right,” Mohinder nodded, stepping into the car. “Well, we still need to pick up milk, rice, lentils, and bread, and Molly’s running low on feminine hygiene products…”
~*~
They split up the remainder of their shopping, because Sylar’s last attack on their family was too recent for them to feel comfortable leaving Molly alone for any measurable length of time that didn’t involve being in a heavily populated area- and even then, it was nice when she was within sight.
Unfortunately, Matt had a very similar attitude towards Mohinder at the moment. You could blame it on cop-type protective instincts, or on the fact that it had taken Mohinder months to recovers physically from Sylar’s assault, but however you justified it, you still ended up with Matt having a very quite, private freak-out in the dairy aisle when Mohinder failed to show up within a reasonable amount of time.
After an unsuitable amount of time spent tapping his foot and staring at his watch, Matt spied Mohinder weaving his way through bargain aisle. Schooling his features, he asked, in what he thought was a very convincingly annoyed tone, “What have you been up to?”
“Picking out condoms,” Mohinder grunted, heaving an armload of groceries into the cart. “And stop being so worried. It’s a brightly lit shopping center; Sylar isn’t going to jump out from behind the lobster tank and kidnap me.”
Matt frowned. “Who’s worried? Although, you’ve probably jinxed yourself for lobster tanks for all time now.”
Mohinder rolled his eyes.
“And you seriously spent all that time shopping for condoms?” Matt continued, before stopping, with a small, devilish grin on his face. “Oh, I get it. You actually looked at the condoms this time, didn’t you?”
Mohinder rolled his eyes again, although the affect was ruined by the blush creeping up his neck. At the beginning of their relationship, Mohinder had gotten in the habit of casually walking by the condoms and simply grabbing a box at random, partially in an effort not to draw Molly’s attention to the display, mostly because he still didn’t like to think about the fact that he was having sex with Matt, and not only was it the best of his entire life, it came with all the emotions he’d read about but hadn’t actually experienced. As a result, they had ended up with a rather impressive variety of condoms over the years; different flavors, textures, sizes, and, of course, the pre-lubricated varieties. Once, they had even come home with a box that had ‘Built-in Cock Ring!’ emblazoned on the front. They had giggled themselves silly over it, and then very quickly pushed it into the bottom of the garbage so that there was no chance of Molly ever seeing it. Ever. Not that any of this prevent Matt from teasing him about it at every available opportunity.
“Yes, I did, if you must know,” Mohinder replied with a small sniff. Matt’s grin broadened. “But only because I don’t want to scare Molly off with a glow-in-the-dark condom.”
“What?” Matt asked, tilting his head slightly as he strove to understand what was going on inside Mohinder’s head. Then, he abruptly wished he hadn’t bothered. “What?!?”
Mohinder pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Matt, you and I both know that Molly is, in all likelihood, not going to give us warning when she becomes sexually active. We, as responsible, mature parents, should just make sure that she can have safe sex.”
“What!!!” Matt replied.
Mohinder sighed, and pushed the cart up the register.
“WHAT!!!!!!!!!”
~*~
The next morning, Molly showed up for breakfast sporting the static-cling look, an uncomfortable look, and hiding her hands behind her back.
“Good morning, Molly,” Mohinder said. “Elle give you any trouble this morning.”
“She’s still upset about the popcorn,” Molly said, not really meeting his eyes. “And, also, uh…this got mixed in with the bag of shopping you left on my door last night.”
She took her hands out from behind her back, deposited the box in front of Mohinder’s place on the table, before scurrying over to the bread box, blushing furiously.
Matt gave Mohinder a significant look.
Mohinder thought.
Matt balked.
Matt glowered at him.
“Okay Dads, whatever is going on inside your heads, spit it out now before it gives one of you a heart attack,” Molly ordered, shoving an obscenely large mouthful of toast into her mouth.
“Say, please,” Mohinder reminded her absently, “And you aren’t an owl, you don’t need to eat your food whole.”
Molly’s eyes grew large, and she swallowed her toast with exaggerated slowness and calmness. “Those weren’t there by accident, were they?”
“Not really, no,” Mohinder answered.
Molly stared at the box of condoms on the table, which suddenly seemed much bigger than it had been when she’d put it down.
“Um…” Molly said, feeling very articulate. “Thank you? I guess? I mean, um… yeah, this is a good thing, I mean, right?”
Mohinder groaned inwardly.
Matt thought back furiously.
“That’s not what you said last night.”
“Are you sure your abilities are working? Because I was thinking it.”
“Oh ha, my side, you slay me,” Matt muttered.
“I was thinking that too.”
“Right, I take it back,” Molly said suddenly, pushing the box towards Mohinder. “These are obviously for you two.”
Matt and Mohinder exchanged looks.
“Were we-”
“-having that conversation out loud?”
“Yes,” Molly replied firmly.
“Ah, yeah,” Matt rubbed the back of his neck, blushing.
Mohinder thought at him.
Matt thought back viciously. Out loud, he said “Molly, you’re a responsible young woman now. Your Appa and I have talked it over-” He could hear Mohinder’s laughter in his head, but ignored it. “-and we just want you to know that we trust you and we know that when you're dating someone it sometimes gets to a certain point where you feel the need to bring things up a notch. Anyway, we just want you to do what you feel is right, and be able to do it in a safe manner.”
Molly went very quite.
“Molly?” Matt asked. Getting no response, he tried again. “Molly-doll…”
“Umm… there’s no way to say this without it coming out about seven hundred different levels of wrong, so I’ll just say it,” Molly took a deep breath. “You know Farid’s Pakistani, right? I mean, you aren’t this cool about this because you think I’m dating a nice Indian boy, right?”
“Honey, I would be a lot more worried about what the two of you were doing if he was Indian,” Matt deadpanned. Molly groaned.
Mohinder glared
Mohinder sniffed.
Matt laughed.
“I have the feeling I should be very grateful whatever conversation you just had was kept private,” Molly mused out loud, draining her orange juice and picking up her now-empty plates. “And, really, you didn’t need to go through all the trouble of buying a box especially for me. If I need one, I’ll just dip into your stash- under the kitchen sink?” She deposited her dishes in said sink and dropped to her knees to look beneath it. “Why- you know what, I don’t want to know.”
“Good, we don’t want to tell you!” Matt replied.
“Good, don’t!” Molly waved as she headed towards the front door. “See ya, love ya, bye!”
No sooner had the door swung closed than Mohinder rounded on Matt. “So, why is there a stash of condoms under the sink?”
“Hopeful thinking. And a remainder of my time as a boy scout,” Matt replied.
“Well, I suppose this is a sturdy enough table,” Mohinder mused. “Molly has practice and work right after school. I’m sure we could convince Elle to let us have the house for ourselves for a few hours.”
“Seriously?”
“I don’t see why not,” Mohinder replied. “Unless you somehow think your fantasies can compete…”
“Never.”
“Mohinder, even you can’t argue with frozen vegetables,” Matt whined. “It’s not vegetable pizza, it’s not vegetable lean pockets, it’s just plain vegetables. Only frozen!”
The first time they’d had this argument had been right after Matt had come home from the hospital. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to be walking farther than from the bed to the bathroom; Molly had insisted that he follow the doctor’s orders and they’d ended up getting one of those scooter carts, much to both of their delights. He’d looked over at him incredulously from his seat, holding up the pizza box to illustrate his point:
“See, it’s vegetable pizza. Seven kinds of vegetables- peppers, onions, there’s even spinach! You can’t say no to spinach.”
“Yes, I can. Because it’s vegetable pizza,” Mohinder had turned the box over and read the ingredients with mock surprise. “Wow, methylcellulose and partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil. That sounds very healthy to me.”
Matt had snatched the box back with a glare. “Yes, but it isn’t deep-fried or made completely out of high fructose corn syrup, and I might be able to make it without burning the apartment down.”
“Yes, I suppose you may be able to manage taking the pizza out of the box, placing it in the oven, and taking it out at the proper time, but that doesn’t change the fact that it still doesn’t meet the proper nutritional standards for an eight-year-old girl,” Mohinder had explained impatiently
“Neither is eating charcoal, or pretty much every sort of take-out imaginable. But I guarantee you, if we don’t get something low-initiative and pre-prepared, that’s all Molly’s going to get.”
Mohinder had looked at Molly, who seemed to be plotting the best way to sneak a gallon of chocolate-fudge brownie ice cream into the cart. “Someone’s not happy about needing to watch his cholesterol intake.”
Matt had spared half a second to give him a look of pure distain, then turned to Molly and mocked him with “Someone’s a pretentious bastard.”
Mohinder had wheeled on him, horrified. “You can’t use that word in front of Molly!”
Matt had had the grace to look chagrined. “I- yes, you’re right, I’m sorry.”
He had put the pizza box back in the freezer, and Molly had turned around to face the two of the and said, frowning “What does that word mean?”
Matt had looked about ready to have a heart attack and Mohinder had been right along with him, when she’d added, quickly, “Not the b-word. ‘Pretentious’. What does that mean?”
Mohinder had given himself a few minutes to get his heart rate back down under control, giving Matt the opportunity to jump in, answering “It means being a show-off.”
“If they really were just vegetables,” Mohinder sighed, snapping back into the present. He saw the slight exaggeration of the smile lines at the corners of Matt’s mouth, and knew that his stroll down memory lane hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Rather than genetically enhanced carbohydrates spray painted green, I‘d say yes.”
“Since when do you have a problem with anything genetically enhanced?” Matt balked, wheeling around to face Molly. “Hey Molly-doll, Mohinder-”
Molly didn’t hear, as she was all the way at the other end of the aisle, engaged in what looked to be very deep and serious conversation with Farid al-Mumeet, her boyfriend of the week.
Except, Mohinder though with a sudden frown, he wasn’t exactly her boyfriend of the week anymore, was he? More like her boyfriend of the past fifteen weeks, with no end in sight coming.
“Is he stalking her?” Matt hissed.
“No,” Mohinder reassured him. “He simply works here on Thursdays.”
“Doesn’t he already work at the Laundromat? And the dojo?” Matt groused. “What does he need a third job for?”
“This was his first one, I believe,” Mohinder countered softly. They watched as conversation between the two teens had turned away from serious, and into silly and laughter-studded. “Molly helped him get the job at the dojo, and he’s the reason we no longer go to Ms. Chen’s.”
“So he is stalking her!” Matt exclaimed.
“Actually, I think she’s stalking him.”
“Mohinder,” Matt whined. “Could you stop being reasonable and let me hold onto my delusions that Molly’s never going to develop any sort of romantic interest?”
Mohinder looked up at him. “Molly’s been having these crushes since she was ten. She’s all of fifteen now; if anything, her romantic interests are bound to escalate with all those hormones floating about.”
There was a second of extremely awkward silence, as the pair of them realized what, exactly, was implied in that sentence.
“Oh, God, you don’t think she’s having sex yet, do you?” Matt whispered, horrified.
“I-I-I don’t know,” Mohinder spluttered. She was only fifteen, but then again, she had always been precocious. Why shouldn’t that translate into her sexuality as well? “You’re the mind reader.”
“Molly can think circles around me,” Matt groaned. “And I’d rather not look into her head these day, to be honest. Every time I take a peek she obsessing about her schoolwork, Micah’s college applications, Elle’s behavior, Emma’s manifestation, Simon‘s drinking problem, Monty‘s sexual identity crises... It’s enough to give me an anxiety attack, at times.”
Mohinder felt a small pang of guilt. He and Matt had always been shouldering everyone else’s problems, often to their own detriment, and it seemed as though they had doomed Molly to inherit that particular flaw in spades. Which, he supposed, also implied that she’d pick up on their coping mechanism as well, and fall madly in love with someone in the face of all logic and convention.
“So you think she’s-”
“I think we’re going to be facing the scenario in the near future, yes,” Mohinder cut him off. “I also think we shouldn’t send too much time worrying about it. Molly is a mature, responsible young woman now, and-”
“Is it just me, or they standing a little close together?” Matt interrupted, his voice going very low.
Mohinder back around to face the teens, who were displaying a disturbing lack of personal space, and dear God, they weren’t actually going to-
“Molly!” he shouted, loudly and suddenly enough that heads turned in his direction from throughout the store. “You- It’s five-fifty seven! We’ve got to go!”
“Where?” Molly asked, not moving, although he was gratified to see Farid back a respectable three inches away from her.
“To go!” he repeated, frantically shoving the previously offensive vegetables into the cart.
Matt teased him, smugness evident even without the dubious benefits of telepathy.
watch her be a mature, responsible young woman.> Mohinder finished firmly.
~*~
Seeing as they didn’t exactly finish their shopping trip, it came as no surprise to Matt when Mohinder slipped his coat back on a picked his keys up from the counter after bidding Molly goodnight.
“Could you use some company?” He asked, picking himself up from the couch.
“If you want to,” Mohinder shrugged.
“Oh, I want to. Elle is going to walk through the door in about thirty seconds,” Matt warned him, grabbing his own jacket from the back of the kitchen chair.
Sure enough, no sooner had to words left his mouth than the door flung open and Elle strutted in. “Hellooooo, House of M!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
“Hello Elle,” Mohinder sighed.
Matt winced. “Do you have to be so loud?”
“Oh, come on, it’s no fun if you’re quiet,” Elle snorted. Suddenly, a stream of water shot out from behind the two men and hit Elle squarely in the chest. The both wheeled around, only to find Molly holding a water pistol and looking grim.
“What was that for?” Elle spluttered.
“Pre-emptive strike,” Molly explained. “I ate the last of the popcorn while you were gone.”
“You what!” Elle shouted.
In lieu of an answer, Molly darted back inside her room; Elle pushed past Matt and Mohinder in pursuit.
“We’re going out,” Mohinder called out as Elle forced her way inside. “Don’t do anything that will destroy the house or kill anything.”
“And no serious maiming! Or prank phone calls! Or leaving the house!” Matt added. “We’re locking the door behind us, make sure the windows are closed too!”
“Sure Dads!” Molly called over Elle’s indignant cries of “You freaking finished the popcorn!”
Matt and Mohinder exchanged slightly nervous glances as they left the house. “They’ll be alright, you think, right?”
“We’re only going out to the grocery store,” Matt assured the other man, and himself. “I think they can manage to stay out of trouble for half an hour or so. Besides, Molly can see any sort of danger coming their way, and even with her shocking ability temporarily on the fritz, Elle can handle most of the fighting.”
“Right,” Mohinder nodded, stepping into the car. “Well, we still need to pick up milk, rice, lentils, and bread, and Molly’s running low on feminine hygiene products…”
~*~
They split up the remainder of their shopping, because Sylar’s last attack on their family was too recent for them to feel comfortable leaving Molly alone for any measurable length of time that didn’t involve being in a heavily populated area- and even then, it was nice when she was within sight.
Unfortunately, Matt had a very similar attitude towards Mohinder at the moment. You could blame it on cop-type protective instincts, or on the fact that it had taken Mohinder months to recovers physically from Sylar’s assault, but however you justified it, you still ended up with Matt having a very quite, private freak-out in the dairy aisle when Mohinder failed to show up within a reasonable amount of time.
After an unsuitable amount of time spent tapping his foot and staring at his watch, Matt spied Mohinder weaving his way through bargain aisle. Schooling his features, he asked, in what he thought was a very convincingly annoyed tone, “What have you been up to?”
“Picking out condoms,” Mohinder grunted, heaving an armload of groceries into the cart. “And stop being so worried. It’s a brightly lit shopping center; Sylar isn’t going to jump out from behind the lobster tank and kidnap me.”
Matt frowned. “Who’s worried? Although, you’ve probably jinxed yourself for lobster tanks for all time now.”
Mohinder rolled his eyes.
“And you seriously spent all that time shopping for condoms?” Matt continued, before stopping, with a small, devilish grin on his face. “Oh, I get it. You actually looked at the condoms this time, didn’t you?”
Mohinder rolled his eyes again, although the affect was ruined by the blush creeping up his neck. At the beginning of their relationship, Mohinder had gotten in the habit of casually walking by the condoms and simply grabbing a box at random, partially in an effort not to draw Molly’s attention to the display, mostly because he still didn’t like to think about the fact that he was having sex with Matt, and not only was it the best of his entire life, it came with all the emotions he’d read about but hadn’t actually experienced. As a result, they had ended up with a rather impressive variety of condoms over the years; different flavors, textures, sizes, and, of course, the pre-lubricated varieties. Once, they had even come home with a box that had ‘Built-in Cock Ring!’ emblazoned on the front. They had giggled themselves silly over it, and then very quickly pushed it into the bottom of the garbage so that there was no chance of Molly ever seeing it. Ever. Not that any of this prevent Matt from teasing him about it at every available opportunity.
“Yes, I did, if you must know,” Mohinder replied with a small sniff. Matt’s grin broadened. “But only because I don’t want to scare Molly off with a glow-in-the-dark condom.”
“What?” Matt asked, tilting his head slightly as he strove to understand what was going on inside Mohinder’s head. Then, he abruptly wished he hadn’t bothered. “What?!?”
Mohinder pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Matt, you and I both know that Molly is, in all likelihood, not going to give us warning when she becomes sexually active. We, as responsible, mature parents, should just make sure that she can have safe sex.”
“What!!!” Matt replied.
Mohinder sighed, and pushed the cart up the register.
“WHAT!!!!!!!!!”
~*~
The next morning, Molly showed up for breakfast sporting the static-cling look, an uncomfortable look, and hiding her hands behind her back.
“Good morning, Molly,” Mohinder said. “Elle give you any trouble this morning.”
“She’s still upset about the popcorn,” Molly said, not really meeting his eyes. “And, also, uh…this got mixed in with the bag of shopping you left on my door last night.”
She took her hands out from behind her back, deposited the box in front of Mohinder’s place on the table, before scurrying over to the bread box, blushing furiously.
Matt gave Mohinder a significant look.
Mohinder thought.
Matt balked.
Matt glowered at him.
“Okay Dads, whatever is going on inside your heads, spit it out now before it gives one of you a heart attack,” Molly ordered, shoving an obscenely large mouthful of toast into her mouth.
“Say, please,” Mohinder reminded her absently, “And you aren’t an owl, you don’t need to eat your food whole.”
Molly’s eyes grew large, and she swallowed her toast with exaggerated slowness and calmness. “Those weren’t there by accident, were they?”
“Not really, no,” Mohinder answered.
Molly stared at the box of condoms on the table, which suddenly seemed much bigger than it had been when she’d put it down.
“Um…” Molly said, feeling very articulate. “Thank you? I guess? I mean, um… yeah, this is a good thing, I mean, right?”
Mohinder groaned inwardly.
Matt thought back furiously.
“That’s not what you said last night.”
“Are you sure your abilities are working? Because I was thinking it.”
“Oh ha, my side, you slay me,” Matt muttered.
“I was thinking that too.”
“Right, I take it back,” Molly said suddenly, pushing the box towards Mohinder. “These are obviously for you two.”
Matt and Mohinder exchanged looks.
“Were we-”
“-having that conversation out loud?”
“Yes,” Molly replied firmly.
“Ah, yeah,” Matt rubbed the back of his neck, blushing.
Mohinder thought at him.
Matt thought back viciously. Out loud, he said “Molly, you’re a responsible young woman now. Your Appa and I have talked it over-” He could hear Mohinder’s laughter in his head, but ignored it. “-and we just want you to know that we trust you and we know that when you're dating someone it sometimes gets to a certain point where you feel the need to bring things up a notch. Anyway, we just want you to do what you feel is right, and be able to do it in a safe manner.”
Molly went very quite.
“Molly?” Matt asked. Getting no response, he tried again. “Molly-doll…”
“Umm… there’s no way to say this without it coming out about seven hundred different levels of wrong, so I’ll just say it,” Molly took a deep breath. “You know Farid’s Pakistani, right? I mean, you aren’t this cool about this because you think I’m dating a nice Indian boy, right?”
“Honey, I would be a lot more worried about what the two of you were doing if he was Indian,” Matt deadpanned. Molly groaned.
Mohinder glared
Mohinder sniffed.
Matt laughed.
“I have the feeling I should be very grateful whatever conversation you just had was kept private,” Molly mused out loud, draining her orange juice and picking up her now-empty plates. “And, really, you didn’t need to go through all the trouble of buying a box especially for me. If I need one, I’ll just dip into your stash- under the kitchen sink?” She deposited her dishes in said sink and dropped to her knees to look beneath it. “Why- you know what, I don’t want to know.”
“Good, we don’t want to tell you!” Matt replied.
“Good, don’t!” Molly waved as she headed towards the front door. “See ya, love ya, bye!”
No sooner had the door swung closed than Mohinder rounded on Matt. “So, why is there a stash of condoms under the sink?”
“Hopeful thinking. And a remainder of my time as a boy scout,” Matt replied.
“Well, I suppose this is a sturdy enough table,” Mohinder mused. “Molly has practice and work right after school. I’m sure we could convince Elle to let us have the house for ourselves for a few hours.”
“Seriously?”
“I don’t see why not,” Mohinder replied. “Unless you somehow think your fantasies can compete…”
“Never.”