Secrets, Phantoms and Pancakes
What if this had been the solution all along?
The diner bustled around its early bird patrons like a machine slowly chugging itself to life. A coffee machine gurgled behind the counter, cutlery clattered nearby, orders were called back and forth from the kitchen, and finding himself sitting in the middle of it all Peter couldn't stop himself from wondering.
Across the booth from him, Sylar shovelled a mountainous forkful of blueberry pancakes into his mouth, sighed contentedly, and even smiled at the motherly, curly-haired waitress who refilled his coffee. She laughed at his enthusiasm.
"Give me a shout if you want a fresh plate, hon. There's plenty more where those came from."
"I might just take you up on that -" Sylar eyed the curly-haired waitress' name tag. "- Debra." He smiled again, a genuine expression different from any smirk Peter had ever seen on that face.
Could this possibly be the cause of his ever-changing moods? A murderous appetite? And Peter had simply had the misfortune of meeting him every time he'd been hungry, before?
"You boys have yourselves a nice day, now."
"You too, Debra." Sylar heartily tucked back into his breakfast as if it was simultaneously his first and last meal on Earth. So invested, it took a moment for him to register Peter's watchful eyes upon him. "What?" He demanded, mouth full.
Maybe there really was something to be said for remedying anger with food? The previous tension hadn't seemed to accompany Peter inside the cosy walls of the diner, not now that rain tapped soothingly against the window and his fingers had long since thawed around his coffee mug.
"Back at the house," he said quietly, "you saved me. You didn't have to, but you did." He eyed a ripped bullet hole in Sylar's clothes, still subtly peeking out from Peter's too-small jacket. The skin beneath was tender and healed now, but guilt still weighed in the empath's gut. "Thank you."
Hastily returning to his breakfast, Sylar shoved another forkful of pancakes into his mouth. "Don't turn it into something it wasn't, Peter," he said around a generous bite. "My abilities sensed a threat, instinct kicked in. That's all."
Despite himself, Peter almost smiled. "Instinct?"
He doubted Sylar had intended to confess what he just had. If his words were the truth (and Peter suspected they were) did that mean his instinct, deep down, was to help others? Was it instinct that had rescued Peter from Nathan's goons at the motel, too? That had spared him from becoming Mohinder's lab rat once upon a time, thrown him clean out a window to save his life, or taken his father's fate out of his hands?
'You're not a killer, Peter. I am.'
"Alright," Peter contested, "what about just now? Debra?"
Sylar's only answer was a flick of his tongue to catch a crumb on his lips, and the furrowing of his brow. A question he wouldn't ask twice.
"You just wished her a nice day. Did you mean it?" Peter lifted his forgotten fork to his mouth and resumed eating a piece of crispy bacon. He had to admit, Sylar's breakfast detour might not have been the worst idea in the world. "I dunno, I guess I just wasn't expecting..."
Sylar swallowed his pancakes, eyes narrowed slightly. Perhaps Peter should have let him finish his meal before poking the beast? "'Cause I'm the bad guy I can't have manners, is that what you're saying? What reason would I possibly have to hurt her?"
"So, what?" Peter couldn't tell if he succeeded in hiding his surprise. "You only use your powers for a reason?"
Sylar prodded lightly at a pancake. "Usually. Sometimes I disappoint myself."
When sympathy tugged at him, Peter had to remind himself Sylar's victims deserved it more. "You take what you want, do what you want with people's lives." He caught and held the killer's eyeline without accusation, aggression or even judgement. "Why is it worse to be rude to a stranger?"
"It's different."
"Why?"
Peter wasn't aware he'd leaned forward on the table until the other man clocked the movement with tense, guarded eyes. "Since when is that any of your business, Petrelli?"
Catching himself, Peter backed off. "You're right, it's not, I just..." He lowered his voice, struggling to put their shared insanity into words for the very first time. "You and me? We've killed each other in the past. Died together. Thought we were family. Even shared timelines! And now we're here, on the road together, and I still barely know a thing about you. It feels... backwards, somehow."
"As opposed to what? Becoming BFFs? Braiding each other's hair while we run for our lives? A whirlwind romance for the ages? Please." Sylar smirked, setting down his fork and crossing his arms. "Don't give me that look. What are you really after?"
A warning undertone purred beneath the killer's voice. But with every passing hour together, it seemed less and less likely this man would murder Peter simply for saying the wrong thing. Could time really change so much, so quickly? Or was the jaded killer across the table already on his path to becoming the man who had once welcomed Peter into his home and held him like he was important? At the time, Peter hadn't believed it for a minute. Now? He wasn't so sure.
Or maybe it was all the pancakes.
The empath hesitated, but there was no other way to say it. "I just want to understand you better. Is that so bad?"
While Sylar studied him for so much as a hint of an agenda, far too late, the thought occurred to Peter that the guy might be able to read minds. Could he? Had he murdered Matt at the motel after all and stolen his ability? Was there another telepath out there who had met a similarly unfortunate end? Or had he always looked at Peter with such intensity?
It was strikingly vulnerable. Peter endured it anyway, taking a sip of coffee if only for something to half hide behind.
"You're telling the truth." Sylar's verdict finally caressed his features, softening them.
A tentative, unspoken thing blossomed within the booth like steam on the air between the men, and Peter would swear the killer looked at him a little differently, after.
He didn't expect Sylar to elaborate, so the silence that followed wasn't too disappointing as they cleared their plates and steadily emptied their coffee mugs. How exhausting must it be to live as suspicious as Sylar did every minute of every day? Then again, with just a fraction of that kind of scepticism, Peter might not have fallen for Nathan's final hug.
The reminder stung, still raw. Why, Peter wondered, was it easier to accept his enemy would protect him (on instinct or not) than to accept his brother had just broken his heart yet again? It didn't feel real that he'd be halfway back to D.C. right now, shackled and tranquillised yet again, were it not for Sylar.
Sylar, who'd likely murdered more people than Nathan's entire team of agents combined. Sylar, whose reward for sparing Peter's fate had been a slew of live rounds to the chest. Sylar, who had already demonstrated a capacity for goodness more times in half a day than Peter would have believed him capable of in a lifetime.
The killer broke the silence so softly Peter almost didn't hear him over the distant sound of brewing coffee. "I don't want to hurt people. I have to. I never had a choice."
Peter watched him, absently toying with his mug. "Says who?"
"You know there's a Hunger. As I recall, Saint Peter, you didn't handle it much better than I did."
Instantly, regret clawed its way up Peter's windpipe like smoke, making it difficult to breathe. Having Sylar's ability felt more like a nightmare than a memory, one he'd been fortunate enough to wake from as quickly as it had claimed him. Peter couldn't imagine still suffering with it now. The strength it must take to fight it every day, every minute, even long enough just to smile at a waitress. Jesus.
"So all... that?" He asked his coffee, a little huskily. "It was the Hunger? It wasn't you?"
The perplexed way Sylar looked at him then, they may have been alone in a stolen pocket of time. Then cutlery dropped nearby, clattering loudly, and the moment rained down around them in pieces.
The killer leaned back in his seat, lazily draping an arm over the back of the booth. "What do you want me to say, Peter? The voices made me do it? None of it was my fault? I was possessed the whole time?" He took a swig of coffee, making a show of it. "The truth is I've killed even when I didn't have my abilities. I could have stopped more than once and I didn't. So sorry to disappoint you, Peter, but I'm no victim, and it's really not that complicated."
Suddenly the rainy, fogged-up window became much more interesting to look at than Sylar. Aware of the bacon churning nauseatingly in his stomach, Peter resisted the urge to push his empty plate away. Because he wasn't going to cave to Sylar's game. Because he was seeing it clearer now, through ever-growing cracks in that mask: time had been cruel to Gabriel Gray. Time and life and betrayal from every family he'd ever known, and he was far from that kid on his little red tricycle, with crooked glasses and flushed cheeks and no idea what horrors lay waiting to claim him, in this life and others.
But Peter could no longer see him as a heartless sadist. That mantle just didn't fit a man who would get shot saving someone else, or commit the blackness of murder, himself, to spare the blood from poisoning their hands. Whose instinct, no matter how deep down, was to help those in need, no matter the damage it left for himself.
( )
"I don't believe you."
The empath turned that defiant stare of his from the rain-speckled window back onto Sylar, if only to watch him squirm.
"Why didn't you kill me outside? You could have done it, easily. If you're so evil, then why not, right?"
Sylar rolled his eyes impatiently. "Okay, so maybe the death threat was a bit far, I'll admit, but you seem to be making a habit of stealing my ability, Petrelli, and that won't do." Peter tilted his head in question. "A certain souvenir you picked up during your trip to the future?"
Sylar had been looking forward to riling up the little hero, making something of a dent in his oh-so-calm demeanour. But he hadn't expected the sudden huskiness to the man's voice to surprise him as much as it did.
"I didn't steal it – you gave it to me! Even though you didn't wanna condemn me to the Hunger, even though you knew it would hurt us both, you did it anyway! 'Cause I asked you to."
Sylar's insides knotted at this information. At the passion that blinded the empath at merely the memory of the phantom Sylar would never get to meet. An older, wiser (and in Sylar's imagination, inexplicably handsomer) version of himself who had somehow reached the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and overcome all his demons, if only to dangle this feat forever beyond his younger self's reach. Despite vowing never to dwell on what he might have lost from that future... Sylar couldn't deny that he was curious.
What the hell had Peter witnessedthere?
What had been haunting him since he'd teleported back into the Primatech cell, slammed Sylar against the wall and broken his neck through a haze of the Hunger, terror and denial? Even for an immortal man, such a death was not easily forgotten. There was no denying: Peter had seen something. And it still lived in his every word, every glance, every move he made around Sylar to this day.
"Why would I ever do that?" Sylar hated that it came out as almost a whisper.
Watching a muscle clench slightly in Petrelli's jaw, and something resembling panic flutter in the depths of earnest, hazel eyes, it didn't escape Sylar's notice that when the man looked away to push that annoyingly misbehaving lock of hair off his face, he didn't look back again.
"You didn't say."
Peter Petrelli may be many things (most of them ridiculous) but a liar he was not. He wasn't like his family. Sylar's lie-detecting power had been unusually quiet since setting out on the road together, which meant all the rest of Peter's nonsense had been true. And if the guy insisted Sylar's precious ability had been shared consensually in an alternate timeline, then Sylar had no choice but to, grudgingly, believe him.
But as to why? He'd felt the bitter taste of dishonesty tingle down his spine before Petrelli even opened his mouth.
( )
Mind reader or not, Peter desperately tried not to think about the little boy, still in his pyjamas, lying in the ruins of a devastated kitchen, cradled in his father's arms.
Maybe now was the best time to confess the truth? Maybe Sylar would find relief in the fact that he'd once treasured a child more than his beloved abilities, enough to give over his power so Peter could protect the boy? But the words wouldn't come. And for the first time, Peter had to admit to himself he might not be holding back purely to spare the other man pain.
Because releasing his secret would mean the crime had actually happened. It would bleed over into this timeline. It would mean that, accidentally or not, Peter had really led the ambush right to little Noah's house. That he was responsible for the death of Sylar's only son.
"Look..." he heard himself say instead. "I just mean, you're more than the Hunger. Okay? Gabriel Gray? I don't believe you were always this way, and I don't think you wanna be -"
"Why do you care?!"
Sylar slammed his hands on the table so quickly Peter's heart jolted in his chest before he even noticed the killer was towering over him. The diner fell quiet around them. Even the coffee machine stopped gurgling.
Deciding against launching pancakes at the guy in hopes of averting an incoming slaughter, Peter endured the dozens of eyes upon them and watched humility creep over Sylar's face, unaided. Strange, how making a scene here was unacceptable to him, yet murdering his way across the country was considered okay?
The diner's ticking clockwork resumed once the killer sat back in his seat, perfectly composed now. But Peter's heartbeat didn't slow when Sylar's hands unclenched and slipped into his lap, leaving behind two starkly burned handprints on the table. Fuck.
Deep, dark eyes flicked up to Peter's. "You know what I've done, Peter. What I'm capable of." If evidence of his emotions wasn't literally branded into the tabletop between them, it might be easy to believe there was nothing below the surface at all. "Why does the rest even matter?"
( )
The little hero, it seemed, didn't have a ready-made answer for this one.
He just watched Sylar behind that damned lock of hair with those damned eyes of his and that damned look he'd been wearing since returning from the future, like he was sitting on a troublesome secret, knowing more than he should, more than Sylar knew.
Finally, Peter shrugged, and this time, impossibly, his words held no trace of a lie. "It just does."
Huh.
Ignoring the thud of his own heart, Sylar was struck by the thought he'd never noticed before that one side of Peter's lips lifted higher than the other. An imperfect, asymmetrical curve that aroused Sylar's urge within to fix things that were broken. How could he have missed such a jarring flaw on that otherwise ridiculously angelic face until now?
Unless... unless this was the first time Peter had ever smiled at him.
"Can I get you boys anything else?"
Faster than Hiro Nakamura could teleport, Debra appeared at their booth with a freshly brewed pot of coffee and a tighter smile than last time. Sylar jumped to hide the singed handprints branding the tabletop, but Peter had already beaten him to it.
Debra's smile warmed when she looked between the men, appeased by the apparent resolution to their quarrel. And only then did Sylar realise the table felt unfamiliar, warm and comfortable beneath his palms. And that it wasn't the table, after all. And that he was sitting here out in the open holding Peter Petrelli's hands for the world to see.
Oh.
Appalled, the fugitives met eyes. Pinned in place, Peter could only twitch, but Sylar didn't dare move and reveal the superhuman handprints to Debra. He didn't need to know how quickly the kindness in her face would be replaced by fear.
"I can come back if I'm interrupting," she suggested, curls bouncing pleasantly.
"You're not," Peter and Sylar blurted in unison, perhaps the first time they'd ever agreed on anything.
Sylar didn't care that Peter refused to look at him suddenly, because if he wasn't mistaken, the self-righteous, sanctimonious little hero was blushing.
Unable to resist the fragrant drop of blood in the water, the killer shone Debra a dazzling smile. "Peter, here, was just telling me how much I matter to him. Isn't that right, Pete?" The scathing glare shot his way made it all worth it. Sylar made a performance of patting the guy's hands, reminded how much he enjoyed the taste of some good ol' payback.
Debra laughed and refilled their mugs with freshly brewed coffee. "Sounds like you've got yourself a good one, hon."
"That's Peter." Sylar never took his eyes off the furious, squirming empath, lest he miss a moment of his discomfort. "Too good for his own good."
And as soon as he said it, Sylar couldn't concentrate on Peter's forced smile to Debra, or the way he politely thanked her for gathering their plates, and he forgot entirely about making the hero suffer for all the uncomfortable, prying questions that had ruined a perfectly good breakfast.
Because it was true, Sylar realised with a jolt through his being. Peter Petrelli was too good. So good and honest and selfless that it was downright sickening at times.
So why would he lie earlier? For the very first time all trip? What the hell kind of foresight was he hiding? And what could possibly have motivated Sylar to hand over his precious ability in the future, after bleeding and dying to obtain it, sacrificing his morality and selling his soul for it?
What could ever be more important than that...?
Whatever it was had changed Peter's mind about him since he'd returned from that lost timeline, infected with the secret like a virus. It had made him give a damn about the wretched soul of a murderer, convinced him that a heart did beat within the monster he'd once hated.
Because (current hand-holding debacle aside, perhaps) Peter didn't hate him anymore. Somehow, inexplicably, Sylar had to admit this fact to himself. But for the life of him, he couldn't understand why.
Debra's voice sounded from a long way off. "Ah, love. Make sure to enjoy every minute of it. They're not kiddin' when they say the time flies by..."
Peter flinched, his hands clenching in Sylar's. And Sylar wasn't sure if this was before or after a rogue vein of electricity slipped free from his control and zapped the guy. He didn't care. Because a lid had just burst open in the corner of his mind and the idea wouldn't fit back into its box. It spilled from the seams, impossible, blinding him, the only thing that made sense.
Because it stood to reason something unimaginable must have possessed Sylar's future self to willingly share his ability with Peter Petrelli, of all people.
Something all-consuming. Stronger than the sacrifice he'd made of his soul to gain his powers in the first place, insane enough to give him total leave of his senses, so unfamiliar he hadn't known how to recognise it until now.
Something Sylar had longed for in secret, but never truly known in this life.
Love.
( )
The instant Debra left with the plates, Peter hauled his stinging hands back to his side of the booth. He didn't know if the electric shock had been an accident or intended as the cherry on top of Sylar's choice performance to torture him, but wouldn't put it past the guy in any case.
"You done?" Peter huffed, flexing his hands under the table.
Sylar didn't answer. When Peter glanced over, he saw the man's brief playfulness was gone, like it had never happened. What the hell? He had closed in on himself again, apparently locked up tight, like none of the confessions and none of the ground Peter thought they'd just covered at this table had made any difference at all. Like it had all been for nothing.
Evidently, the pancakes theory was a bust. Peter had pushed things too far with his probing, he presumed. And now here they were, two full meals, another argument, a bout of vandalism and an electrocution later, right back where they'd started.
Great.
Maybe Sylar had been right before, and the apron-clad father who had loved his child more than his power really was from an alternate reality? Maybe he was destined to forever be an inconsiderate, power-tripping jerk in this one.
"I... I think that's enough heart-to-heart for one day," the killer said softly. Peter blinked the diner back into focus as Sylar abandoned his freshly steaming coffee and got to his feet. "Let's get going. We're wasting daylight."
Peter clambered out of the booth feeling worse than he had on arrival, now that there was actually food to churn in his stomach. Before he remembered that he'd misplaced his wallet somewhere between being grabbed and drugged and shipped onto a cargo plane, Sylar absently dropped a few notes onto the table, including a generous tip.
Peter trailed behind as the guy cut his way through the diner toward the back exit, choosing to draw hope from this gesture. The fact he hadn't burned the place to the ground rather than foot the bill had to mean something, right? Never mind that the tip was more than enough to cover the damage to the table. Maybe he really did hope Debra had a nice day?
"Here."
Peter nearly walked into Sylar's fist when it appeared before his face. Taken aback, he stole a second to process the open doorway they'd stopped in, the sheets of rain lashing outside, and the jacket Sylar had shed and was holding out for him like it was only an afterthought.
"I'm not about to look after you if you get sick," Sylar quickly clarified. As if for emphasis, a particularly bitter wind billowed through the doorway and spattered the the pair with icy rain, lifting Peter's hair and causing him to shiver in just his t-shirt. Tentatively, he took his jacket back, half expecting another electric shock to come with it. None did.
Trying not to look too surprised, Peter shrugged it on. The fabric was warm and smelled of Sylar. Until now, he hadn't even known he knew what Sylar smelled like.
"Th-"
"Don't you start."
Without so much as a backwards glance or even a lofted eyebrow, the killer stepped outside and disappeared into the grey void where the parking lot should have been. Letting the corner of his lips lift, just a little, Peter popped his collar against the rain and followed.
Okay. So maybe Sylar was only an inconsiderate, power-tripping jerk sometimes?
( )
Sylar could have killed Peter the second the empath joined him in the deserted parking lot, but he didn't.
The low visibility would be ideal. The rain would wash the blood away in rivulets. But somehow, the need to rampage and compensate and punish Peter Petrelli for harbouring such an intimate, incriminating secret about him for months, now... just didn't kick in.
Instead, Sylar's epiphany ate at him quietly while he scoured the parked cars for one to borrow, peering through needle-like raindrops and wiping his wet hair from his eyes. He didn't want to believe it, but was haunted by after-images of warm hands in his own, an inquisitive, fearless gaze and an asymmetrical smile, and the unexpected way Peter had challenged Mohinder last night...
'He's incapable of caring about anyone other than himself -' ''That's not true.'
At the time, Peter's certainty had struck the killer out of nowhere, and lingered ever since. And what was it he'd said, just that morning in the car?
'I know you have it in you to be better... All you need is someone to fight for...'
Someone.
Of course. He'd never been hiding a what, at all. But a who.
The fugitives worked their way through half a dozen impenetrable cars in the lot, hunched against the rain, but Sylar hardly felt it. Droplets crept icily down his face and through the bullet holes in his jacket, but he barely registered them.
Had a phantom version of himself really loved Peter Petrelli once upon a future?
Enough to want to spare him the hell of the Hunger, not to mention surrender his treasured ability simply because Peter asked him to? And this was what had changed Peter's mind about him? But if the love of a monster was the secret he had been carrying around his neck like a weight, why wouldn't he run for the hills the moment he returned to this timeline, knowing what he did in the other?
Why bother getting to know Sylar at all? Why would he stay?
The killer kept waiting for the rage to kick in. For his abilities to creep over and take control. They never did. And when Peter suggested they return instead to Samson's house for their original (and now probably bugged) car, such a stupid idea didn't fry Sylar's patience as it usually would have done, and his retort was only a little sarcastic.
He couldn't explain why he didn't confront the hero immediately. He couldn't say why he didn't want to know the answers, yet. Curiosity, perhaps? Revenge? Peter so valiantly throwing himself into this road trip was almost certainly a long con, Sylar decided; something unspoken glimmered tantalisingly just below the surface, but this time he was in on the game. And if Petrelli could harbour that sort of secret for months, then Sylar could sure as hell keep one of his own.
Damn it if he'd be the first to cave.
Finally, the fugitives found an empty, beaten down clunker of a car at the edge of the parking lot: as rusty as it was soggy, courtesy of a jammed-open passenger window. Hardly ideal, but Peter's breathing was starting to shudder uncontrollably beside him, and Sylar meant it that he wasn't going to blow the guy's nose and make him soup if he foolishly went and caught himself a cold! So he made fast work of a crafty hook of telekinesis and pried the clunker's door open from the inside.
'Shelter' might have been too generous a word for what greeted them inside the vehicle, but it was welcome all the same. Somehow it was colder in here than it had been outside, and while Sylar's seat had been spared most of the sogginess, Peter's couldn't claim as much. Sylar didn't envy him that side.
"We c-can't steal this c-car," Peter managed through chattering teeth.
Sylar hadn't looked at him since the blissful ignorance of the booth. Since before. Raking his sodden hair back off his face, he forced himself to do so now, and found somehow Peter hadn't changed at all despite the world having just shifted around them.
He didn't look different. He didn't suddenly look like Sylar's miracle salvation, like someone he would sacrifice his sanity for. In fact, as the killer took in the soaked, sorry state of the empath's clinging jacket and dripping hair, he couldn't decide if the sight was more pitiful or funny. Maybe both.
"Someone needs it," Peter insisted, blowing into trembling hands. Sylar remembered how warm his skin had felt just minutes ago at the table, and thanked a certain cheerleader that his own numb fingers had thawed in seconds.
He wondered if Peter would appreciate another zap of electricity to warm him up faster. Probably not.
"We need it, Peter. Unless you plan to freeze to death."
The youngest Petrelli just scowled between shivers and dark, sodden hair that hung more defiantly than ever over his face. As if his plan certainly was to freeze to death if it might spare a stranger the slightest inconvenience. Unbelievable. He truly was the most hopeless, bleeding heart, wasn't he?
If Sylar couldn't trust anyone or anything else in life, he could always trust his superhuman abilities. Petrelli hadn't been lying about one thing, at the very least. Somehow, Sylar's fate did matter to him.
And if Sylar was honest with himself, he knew it had since before he'd stumbled upon the guy in the depths of Bennet's shadowy storage facility and allowed him to tag along on the road. He'd known since before Peter had let him walk free after murdering his father right in front of him. Since before the empath had stayed behind in enemy territory and risked his life to come back for him, simply because 'I wasn't gonna leave you'...
Yet again, it all led back to Peter's return from that goddamned inescapable future.
Not for the first time, the killer seriously contemplated kicking the other man out of the car. He could leave him and make all this confusion stop. Back to his old life, back to himself, find his father on his own, free from prying questions and judgement and even the occasional damned crooked smile.
It would be easier, without him. Sylar didn't need Peter's knack of shining a light on the unpleasant parts of himself he'd done a great job at avoiding for years, now. The empty passenger seat would be Sylar's companion from here on out, as quiet as it was soggy, and that would be that!
Instead, burying the strange impulse to flick that wet lock of hair out of Petrelli's eyes, Sylar reached for the cluttered dashboard. "Fine." He grabbed an empty cigarette carton from a pile of discarded trash and held it aloft. Peter watched, his scowl easing into wide-eyed wonder, as gold leaked across the surface like spilled paint. "This'll be worth five times as much as the car. The owner should thank us," Sylar huffed, hating that Peter's reaction made losing their latest stand-off feel slightly less embarrassing. "Happy?"
Peter gently took and examined the carton. "I didn't know you could do that."
"I don't much. It's hardly one of my better abilities," Sylar drawled, a little smug, as he worked on jump-starting the clunker with Elle Bishop's ability (more fickle, but useful, than her father's). It wasn't often he got to show off his collection of powers, after all. Usually, the captive audience didn't survive long enough to be impressed.
"I'm sure the guy you stole it from is thrilled about that." Muttering, Peter creaked open the passenger door and set the gold carton down outside.
Sylar hauled the car into gear with a great deal of grinding and grumbling of machinery, wondering if the empty, soggy seat might have appreciated the sentiment more, after all.
"To death," he retorted, finding a sense of enjoyment in Peter's extremely disapproving look.
A/N: I think it's about time these two took a moment to just sit and talk things out, for once, without killing each other in the process! Do you agree? As to whether or not these few... misunderstandings... made things any better between them? I'll have to leave that for you to decide XP
Also, how crazy to think Peter and Sylar never actually discussed their lost future ever again in canon? All that potential for feels and secrets and guilt and connection was just left to fall away through the cracks? Don't worry though, my lovelies, I've got it covered X)
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and as always thank you for being so patient with me between updates! I've already made a start on chapter 4 so hopefully you won't have to wait as long for the next one. Until then, keep the thoughts and ideas and guesses a-comin'!