Lap of Luxury, Prelude

It was almost a year to the day since Matt came to live with them. Just like last year, snow dusted the sidewalks and the Fifth Avenue windows were frosted on the outside and animated on the inside. But unlike last year, Molly was well again, and she was walking down the street with her adopted dads, enjoying her first Christmas-in-New-York. Molly had never seen a whole city get together and put up a fantasy like this. She was in little-girl heaven, and Matt and Mohinder sort of feared her head might explode.

“Wait ’til we get to FAO Schwartz,” Matt muttered. “We’ll have a holy terror on our hands then.”

“I think she might surprise you,” Mohinder grinned. “She has remarkably good perspective for a nine-year-old, having seen what she’s seen.”

“Mohinder, when I go to FAO Schwartz I want to buy everything in the store,” Matt said. “There is no hope for her. Trust me.”

Matt was right. Molly threw a fit over a play make-up set and a group of heavily decked out dolls and a laser gun game, and Mohinder did his best to put his foot down, but Molly did what every kid in that situation knew to do: decide he wasn’t playing fair and she’d try the other parent.

“Matt, you think it’s OK for me to get make-up, right?”

His gaze was elsewhere. “What?” The absent expression was so unlike him that both of his companions gawked.

“Give me a second, honey,” Mohinder said to Molly, kissing the top of her head. He moved over to Matt, hand slipping onto his waist. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s just…” The oddly nostalgic, sweet smile on Matt’s face was one Mohinder didn’t think he’d ever seen before. “You want to know something dumb?”

“What?”

“As a kid I used to watch things like Richie Rich and the Beverly Hillbillies and I used to love the idea that someday, maybe, a boring, normal kid like me could stay in a place like that.”

He pointed across the street. A limousine was pulling up outside the Plaza Hotel. Mohinder had heard of the place, but in living color it really did seem like a palace. Flags fluttered above the rich crimson carpet that surrounded its shining doors, and the doormen seemed to be more like palace guards.

“Pretty dumb, huh? My biggest dream as a kid was to be rich.”

“Yes, moronic. You only shared that dream with every other child in the world,” Mohinder said with his usual sarcastic lilt.

“Yeah, but you’ve seen real poverty, so I feel especially bad saying so in front of you. But at the time, I honestly thought we were poor. Until Dad left and I realized how bad things could get, I really thought I was the unluckiest kid on earth.”

“And now?” The hand on his waist possessive, lips tickling his ear.

“Well, I don’t know if I’m the luckiest man alive,” Matt grinned, “but I figure I’m probably somewhere in the top five or ten. Give or take a few.” He pecked Mohinder on the lips, making Molly gag in the background.

“What’s with you two?” she finally burst out, exasperated. “Can’t you do that when I’m not around to see it?”

“Sure,” Matt said with a huge smile. “Just let us know when you’re done looking.” He wrapped an arm around Mohinder’s waist, leaned in for another kiss, but Mohinder demurred. “What?”

“We’re traumatizing our little girl!” he protested, even as a grin played across his downturned face.

“She needs a little trauma now and again.” Matt darted in like a snake striking, trying to press his lips to ears, cheek, hair, something, but Mohinder batted him away.

Holding himself just far enough from Matt to keep him honest, Mohinder looked into those honest, deep eyes. He raised a hand to Matt’s face and allowed Matt to kiss that, at least. “Do you know what we need?” he said seriously. “A night out. To ourselves.”

“A-men!” muttered Molly as she squeezed past them, running for the display of gigantic stuffed animals. The two of them watched her go, then looked at each other and smiled.

*end prelude*