A/N: Written about three months ago for Perkins. I felt like putting it up. My first Heroes piece, so criticism is valued and compliments are unexpected.

Disclaimer: I’d be rich. I’m not. That should tell you something. I appreciate you giving me the benefit of the doubt.

Of Hallmark, Subways, and Killer Pens

At four in the morning, Christmas day, Mohinder abruptly wakes up and realizes that he has forgotten something Very Important.

He has forgotten to get Molly a present.

And while this may be seen as an overused, overly dramatic stereotype of the average struggling parental figure—he actually has a pretty good excuse. Namely, he doesn’t celebrate Christmas.

(And—working to save the world. All that stuff. Yeah.)

Regardless of his beliefs, there is a tree. There is a Christmas tree in the living room that mother-hens over all of the brightly store-wrapped presents that Parkman was thoughtful and considerate enough to buy for his darling angel. There are toys and computer games and lots of pretty pink plastic, and two packages covered in a lot of tape, and some paper, one for Matt, and one for him.

Jesus Christ, even nine year old girls who don’t get an allowance are able to remember to give gifts.

The Indian man takes a second to internally panic and condemn himself to the lowest pit of hell for being such a Scrooge. But because he is Mohinder, and he is practical, he’s up off the couch a second later, pulling a coat on over his sweatshirt and shuffling outside.

He does the math while he waits, jiggling impatiently, in front of the unsympathetic elevator doors. It is four in the morning. It is Christmas day. It is a miracle the little child has not yet woken up.

Perhaps if he could somehow call Hiro…

No. No, that would be wrong. Altering the time and space continuum for a petty matter such as this would be completely unethical and—this is his problem. He will fix this. He, Mohinder Suresh, will prove that one does not need God’s touch to make a little girl smile.

All of this completely higher-than-thou preaching can be attributed to the absence of his cell phone—the one he’d accidentally left behind.

--

Flagging down a taxi is, Mohinder decides, no joke. He was never so blatantly uncaring during his days as a city employee…

Finally deciding that getting hit and dying by a car that can only drive at twenty miles an hour—(only in New York City would there be traffic at 4 AM on Christmas Day) is a pretty lame way to die, Mohinder changes tactics. Because he is rational. And a man on a mission. Who has approximately ten minutes to get to the mall and back home.

He went down to the subway, letting himself be swallowed by the dime-an-hour-thank-ya-kindly-musicians and reeking walls, (“Don’t lean on them, John!”) and the press and the swell and the breathingbreathingbreathing alive people, all of them with their practical black trench coats and smart black umbrellas and—oh, it’s raining, is it?—

He buys a ticket. Feeds it into the slot. Walks through the gate. Finds that ten years of college are still absolutely worthless when the jungle of color-coded lines fails to tell him where the hell he is and where he’s supposed to go and—

It turns out a second later that he wasn’t looking at a subway map after all. Ducking his head, Mohinder walks away from the explicit poster—hoping that no one had seen how intensely he had been scrutinizing it only moments earlier.

(He doesn’t care how many people’ll vouch for her, that girl is not over eighteen and those…things…are not real.)

But eventually he figures things out, which is a miracle because he hasn’t had his coffee and it’s four in the morning—

…Okay, four fifteen.

Still.

The train’s delayed, but he gets on anyways, and manages to steal a seat before anyone else can. He leans his head against the window, which isn’t cool but feels kind of…plastic-ish. Lack of refreshing or no, he closes his eyes and waits for their departure.

People come in. He doesn’t pay much attention, keeping his eyes shut against their irritated grumbles. A teenage boy sits next to him—probably a runaway, if he’s carrying a duffle bag around—and slouches down in his seat. He doesn’t talk to anyone. It suits Mohinder just fine.

Finally, finally, the stupid train starts to move. He checks his watch again. Four thirty. The second hand is freaking toying with him—

His fingers tap. One knee jiggles.

“Dude,” says the teenager. Mohinder stops. No more is said. The maybe-runaway gets off at the next stop, lost forever. Mohinder turns back to his absorbing tribal rhythm. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap…

It is at 4:35 AM that things go straight to hell.

“Actually, it’s 4:33. Your watch is off,” Sylar lets himself down into the seat which had once been occupied by a boring but safe young man.

Mohinder stares, swallows convulsively, and tries very hard to keep breathing. He finds it more difficult than he had anticipated.

The doors slide shut, cutting off his only chance at escape. He’s about three seconds away from hyperventilating and it’s irrational but why don’t these people realize that there is a mass murderer accidentally invading their personal bubble?

‘Someone should do something heroic,’ Mohinder thinks feverishly and selfishly, ‘So he’ll be distracted and I can get out of here and buy that Christmas present.’

Which is an awful thing to even think. It’s a good thing his religion doesn’t have a Santa or the fat old man would be setting several presents on fire.

“Do you mind if I take a look?” Sylar asks politely. It seems a reasonable enough request, and Mohinder isn’t like…like Matt (who would probably be drawing his gun right now in a grand show of justice) or Peter (who would just look sexy and confused for a while, probably rip off his shirt a few times, do that hair thing, kiss the nearest pretty girl, and then dramatically save the day) or even Hiro, (who would freeze time, write ‘Yatta!’ on this man’s face…and then do something heroic.).

Mohinder hands over his watch without a word. Sylar’s mouth curves up very slightly in bitter nostalgia. Mohinder searches his pockets. He wonders if stabbing a super villain in the eye with a cheap pen qualifies as a proper ending. He supposes it doesn’t.

“Nice strap,” Sylar comments. The tunnel rattles outside, dim lights flashing past.

Mohinder manages to nod, and say very evenly, “Thank you.”

Neither of them says anything for a minute. Sylar continues to fiddle with the watch, poking it apart with blunt fingernails and an appraising eye. Mohinder continues to count sheep in his head, recite his multiplication tables, and focus on breathing—

Basically anything he can think of doing that will let him remain calm.

Instinct Number One: Put as much space between Highly Dangerous Individual and self.

Instinct Number Two: Stab Highly Dangerous Individual in the eye with a pen.

Instinct Number Three…

“Are you going somewhere?” Mohinder asks. He isn’t so sure about how cool and collected he sounds, but…but if Sylar is on his way to do something terrible and potentially Earth-shattering, than he’d like to know so he can…

…Attempt to save the world with the help of his trusty pen. One that doesn’t even have any ink in it.

“Not really,” Sylar shrugs, voice still carefree. Why wouldn’t he be—he’s sitting next to Mohinder. Mohinder who is just a man, not one who can scramble memories or make things blow up with his mind or walk on water or lick his elbow.

“Oh, really?” says Mohinder, in that sarcastic, cynical voice he uses eighty percent of the time. Damn voice has just betrayed him—do not throw rocks at the sleeping animals—

“It’s Christmas, Dr. Suresh,” says Sylar, and hands back the watch. True to his word, the time has been fixed. Mohinder’s squint turns suspicious.

“I highly doubt that something as frivolous as a Hallmark holiday would deter you,” he hisses scathingly.

The woman less than six inches from him, sitting directly behind, has not even raised an eyebrow during this exchange. New York; it does things to people.

Sylar shrugs, but his eyes are dark and for a lurching, agonizing second—Mohinder imagines something there. Something impossibly yearning, an insatiable hunger that just…just…

Maybe he wasn’t really imagining it after all.

“I’m visiting my mother,” Sylar says coolly. Mohinder doesn’t know what to say to that. In the comic books, villains didn’t get mothers. They were just…dropped by storks, or something.

“I see,” he says at last, and almost has a seizure when the other man rises, before it occurs to him that—the train has stopped.

The doors slide open. This part of town…the cemetery. For a second, he can almost feel pity.

(But who is he kidding, he hasn’t had his coffee yet.)

“Merry Christmas,” Sylar intones dryly, and steps away. In his practical black coat, pulling out his sensible black umbrella.

But he won’t be lost forever.

--

Three stops down, and Mohinder realizes that he doesn’t have his credit cards. It appears that Christmas is a thing for four-dollar-sixty-eight-cents stores.