Impulse vs Instinct

"Bounty hunter?"

"Please."

"Accountant?"

"You're kidding me, right?"

"I dunno, eyebrow model?" When Peter stole a glance at the driver's seat, an extremely unamused look was waiting for him beneath said eyebrows. Burying his grin in the depths of the well-crumpled map in his arms, he added, "What? You gotta work with what God gave you, right?"

"I can't believe Peter Petrelli is trying to charm it outta me. Feet off the dash."

Peter obliged, the map crinkling loudly as he uncurled his legs from the clunker's dashboard. "What's the big deal? I told you mine."

Sylar made a sound somewhere between a snort and a snigger. "Anyone with half a brain who's known you more than five seconds could guess you were a nurse, Petrelli. And holding old dying people's hands: bonus points. Give me a challenge next time."

He was right. Sylar hadn't so much as twitched at hearing Peter's profession in a world before abilities. In fact, he seemed so unsurprised that Peter suspected he might have already known it beforehand. Or was Peter really so transparent? Either the killer had meticulously researched everyone else's Primatech files as well as his own, or he truly was as clever as he liked to think he was. Maybe he'd always been? Maybe, like Samson's taxidermy littering every surface of his house, his son had inherited a similarly studious, patient profession? Before it had manifested in the grotesque examining of brains, of course...

"Playing hero for a living," Sylar tutted, without taking his eyes off the road. "I'll bet you've never made a single selfish decision in your life, have you? Done it just for you, 'cause you wanted to, even if it pisses off someone else. And breaking the rules to save lives doesn't count."

Peter just blinked at the faded old map, thinking. Then, pointedly, he hoisted his feet back up to rest on the dashboard, enjoying watching Sylar's expression become significantly less smug. To his credit, the guy didn't challenge him, either too proud to backtrack or smart enough to know he shouldn't.

"Gabriel Gray?" Peter tilted his head to consider his driver, as if the answer might magically appear to him from a different angle. "Knowing how things work," he pondered aloud, biting his lip in concentration. "Something intricate, working with your hands. But I can't picture you as a surgeon."

"You know not every job is about people, right? And I wasn't a cartographer either, so don't think that'll get you outta map duty," Sylar quirked one of those eyebrows at him. Peter hastily returned to the miles of paper in his arms.

The newly repaired car trundled along like no one's business, its rattling now just perpetual background noise for endless detours down country roads. A rock ballad faded in and out through the clunker's old speakers, fighting static. By now, Peter was familiar enough with the sound not to react to Sylar faintly humming along to the radio beside him when his pleasant, unexpectedly gentle voice filled the space. And while any secrets shared last night in that hidden forest clearing remained unspoken in the light of a new day, Peter wasn't sure he wanted to attribute Sylar's good mood entirely to a nap and the relief of getting back on the road.

Getting impatient, Peter turned the old map upside down in case the tangled web of roads might make more sense to him that way (they didn't). "Let me see it again," he said, frowning.

Sylar handed over a slip of yellow, lined notebook paper from his jeans pocket, so neatly folded you couldn't tell it had lived over a day in there. Not for the first time, Peter studied the imprint of Samson Gray's unsteady, scrawled handwriting. But no matter how long he poured over the address he was forced to conclude either he was the worst navigator ever, that the page they needed was sitting back in that little forest clearing as an unhelpful pile of ash, or that 'Solace, Woodsend, IN' simply didn't exist on the map.

Just as he was about to casually broach Sylar's stance on celestial navigation instead, Peter felt the man roll his eyes at the other side of the map. "I was a watchmaker."

Huh. Quieter, more humble than a surgeon, a specialist task that he could truly take his time on and push human patience to the limit. Suddenly, Peter couldn't believe he hadn't guessed it. Replace human patients with clocks and organs with cogs, and it fit him perfectly.

"A watchmaker. That's pretty neat." He smiled, meaning it. "Like fixing clocks and stuff?"

"I restored time pieces." Sylar shot him a look with the air of graciously letting such an ignorant assessment slide.

The end of the rock ballad was eclipsed by radio static, followed by snatches of a broken news report. Sylar stretched to find a station without any unwanted headlines featuring any unwanted senators, and for the first time Peter noticed a well-worn, black watch peeking out the end of his sleeve. Recognition twisted within: that was the same watch Gabriel had once asked him to fix in the future. Its glass face already bore the crack it had back then, and if he looked carefully, Peter might just be able to make out the lettering 'Sylar' hiding behind two static, broken hands.

'It's a scar,' Gabriel had told him. Peter thought he understood better now than he had at the time.

"It was my father's workshop," Sylar continued, unaware of his passenger's straying thoughts. "My adopted father, Martin. He's a nobody. I never planned to fall into the family business, but somehow..." he chuckled hollowly, a sound far removed from the warm, deep rumblings Peter had come to know. "I still ended up a watchmaker."

Peter tore his attention from the cracked watch's face onto its owner's. "No you didn't," he pointed out.

It didn't seem necessary in that moment to add exactly what Sylar had become since leaving his workshop and watches behind. Just that he'd left them at all. Sylar gave up tuning squealing radio dials to glance at Peter, a grateful half-twist almost touching the corner of his lips.

Then a new song crackled valiantly throughout the car: 'Run, run, run away, oh. Psycho Killer -'

Sylar furiously jabbed at the dashboard, silencing the radio altogether. Peter ducked back into the map. And in the ensuing, crippling silence, although really it shouldn't have been funny at all, he couldn't help but laugh.

Beside him, he thought he caught snatches of a warm, deep rumbling sound shyly joining in.

By the time the mirage of a gas station materialised through the trees ahead, the fugitives would gladly risk capture if only to remedy their painfully empty stomachs. Peter clambered stiffly out of the clunker, finding only one whole dollar and a button in his stolen pockets. "Tell you what: you keep the dollar, I'll take the button. Consider it a dent in your tab," Sylar smirked, and sauntered away to a quaint little store plonked at the far side of the lot.

Watching him go, Peter had the strange sensation the man had just taken the pleasantness of the day with him. Either that, or the sudden knot in his gut came from catching sight of his own face on a TV screen through the store window beyond Sylar, and knowing he couldn't follow.

After filling the clunker's tank, Peter ducked into the gas station's exterior toilet if only to escape the feeling of the world's eyes upon him. The splash of cold water on his face was a welcome relief from the grime of the road, but it did nothing to ease the anger creeping hotly over his skin.

It was only as he stood there, dripping over the sink, that Peter realised he'd be truly shocked to be recognised from the news. The photograph circulating headlines was the old one of him as Nathan's polished, tailored-suited Best Man – Angela's favourite picture, one she'd undoubtedly had a hand in selecting for the campaign – but the figure currently staring back at Peter didn't look anything like Senator Petrelli's missing brother.

Dark shadows circled the man in the mirror's eyes, his hair unwashed and hanging in his face, his jaw defined by stubble longer than he'd ever let it grow before. The stolen clothes made him appear younger than he truly was: either they were too big for his frame or he'd lost some weight on the road. Probably both. How anyone could identify him as that clean, smiling man in a new suit was beyond Peter. He couldn't remember the last time he'd beamed like he had in that photo, never mind groomed. Before waking bound and hooded on a cargo plane, anyway. Before the world back home had been stolen out from under him: his life, his job, his apartment – even the fresh carton of milk he'd finally, proudly, remembered to buy after days of surviving only on dry cereal – all frozen in time as if he'd chosen to leave it behind.

Already, home felt like years ago. Like it all belonged to someone else.

Peter's hands shook as he gripped the edge of the sink. How long was he supposed to run? How long was he supposed to hide in broken old cars and grimy toilets for risk of raising the alarm?! There was only so long he could wait helplessly on the sidelines and let someone else pay for him, in pancakes and gasoline or otherwise! But what good could he possibly contribute anyway with nothing but a TAC team on his trail and a dollar in a pocket that wasn't even his?

And there, when Peter trudged back out into the parking lot, the answer was waiting for him. So obvious it might have materialised out of thin air just for him. Mounted on the outside wall of the store, probably so old it may not even be in working condition anymore, but so very tempting all the same. Instantly, he knew it was stupid. Impulsive. The exact type of thing Sylar would lose his mind over if he knew and Nathan would be expecting from him.

But for once in his life, Peter longed to do something selfish. Do it just for him, because he wanted to, even if it pissed off someone else. And since when had listening to reason ever stopped Peter Petrelli from jumping impulsively into action?

So before he could lose his nerve, he stormed toward the ancient pay phone, that dollar burning in his palm, and dialled.

It rang twice. Then – "Petrelli."

Peter's heart clenched. Only now did he realise just how badly he hadn't thought this through. "I'm only gonna say this once," he declared, unable to mask the flare of emotion that burned within at the mere sound of the other man's voice. "Stop."

For a moment there was only silence. Then Nathan sighed. "Heya, Pete."

( )

By the time Sylar reached the gas station counter, he was fully restocked on water bottles, beef jerky, various flavours of chips, had bypassed a few questionable-looking hotdogs that might have been on the spit so long they'd grafted themselves to it, grabbed a plain black backpack and even added a two-pack of overpriced toothbrushes for the road.

It was already more than he'd intended to buy. Yet when he reached the unmanned counter he plucked a map from a wall-mounted stand while he waited. As amusing as Peter's failed antics with the old one may be, the plan was actually to find Samson sometime within the next decade, preferably...

Unable to ignore the TV on the back wall any longer, even Senator Petrelli's latest speech about his poor brother being abducted by dangerous criminals didn't put too much of a dent in Sylar's mood, he realised. Maybe being the bigger person wasn't so difficult after all?

The immaculate politician on screen didn't seem remotely like the idealised man Peter had described to him last night. Was Nathan really afraid? He didn't look it. Did he still love his brother? He had a funny way of showing it. But then... Peter did have a knack for seeing the hidden parts of a person nobody else would believe, didn't he?

With something of a grunt, the store owner ambled through from the back room, stirring a freshly steaming paper cup of something that almost smelled like coffee. "Couldn't you punch that face? He's been going on all day."

Sylar smirked at the thought, dropping a few notes onto the counter as the owner set down his coffee, too hot to drink, and started ringing up the purchases. Apparently taking silence as encouragement, the man continued. "All this talk of dangerous people without the balls to say who he's talking about. As if we don't know." He made a significant face, expressing just how unfooled he really was. "I say just round 'em up, ship 'em off. Ain't got nothing to do with us normal folks."

For the first time all day, something sharp like a flame licked at the tendrils of Sylar's good mood. He squinted down at the store owner to bring him into focus, toying with the rising impulse to rip the faded baseball cap from his head. "Maybe they can't help being the way they are," Sylar said, feeling his lips grow thin. "Maybe they never had a choice."

But the store owner just made a sound that might have been a laugh, safe in the assumption that he was talking to one of his own. "This is America, everyone's got a choice. As far as I'm concerned, the lotta them are damned. That's on them."

Damned. The word shuddered through Sylar, unfurling something deep within. 'You're not my son,' a woman sobbed in an echoey corner of his mind, recoiling as he reached for her, 'You're damned!'

"And Petrelli's brother?" The store owner glanced, unimpressed, at the photograph of Peter filling the TV screen. Sylar didn't think he'd ever seen the hero smile so radiantly in reality as he was there. "Face like that? Two guesses why they took hi-"

Sylar wasn't aware he'd moved until the store owner yowled. Then the guy was pinned flat against the wall, trapped by invisible bonds that held him fast, the groceries forgotten, baseball cap fallen, his eyes bulging as they darted from the ground far below his dangling feet and up to Sylar's outstretched hand.

( )

"Where are you, Pete?"

Peter scoffed. "What, your dogs can't tell you that already?"

Another pause on the far end of the call, while Nathan debated whether or not to deny it. Peter almost wished he would, because then all this might still be some sort of misunderstanding. "They're closing in, yeah. And it's only gonna get worse the more you run."

"Then call them off," he snarled, wishing it didn't sound so much like pleading. "Don't use me to justify what you're doing! We both know I'm not your stolen brother, Nathan, and Sylar's not the one abducting people."

"Sylar, huh? You still with him?"

Peter bit his tongue, stealing a moment to calm down. "Leave him outta this," he warned.

"You mean the man who killed you and put a bullet in our father, or have you forgotten that already?" Peter would swear he could hear his brother rubbing his temples even from miles away. "Listen, Pete, people are gonna get hurt if you don't knock this off. I don't know what the hell you think you're doing -"

"What're you doing?" Peter countered with all he had in him, grateful Nathan couldn't see his hands trembling around the phone.

"What? Saving your life or tryna save the world?"

"Save the world? By rounding up your own people? Tracy, Hiro, Claire!"

Nathan sighed again before calmly pressing on. As if the more emotional Peter got, the less emotions his brother possessed in harmony. "Is that why you called, Pete? To convince yourself running away with a killer was the right decision? What d'you want me to say here?"

Peter just swallowed painfully around the lump in his throat, as capable of making a sound as he was of hanging up right now before another word was exchanged.

"You wanted an apology, is that it?"

And any fragile hopes of said apology, of reason, of Nathan swooping in at the last minute to fix everything shattered anew around Peter. It hurt. It hurt so much he could barely breathe. "I guess I wanted to know my brother's still in there somewhere," he managed to say.

There was a shuffling sound through the phone, and Peter had the vivid image of Nathan sitting at an obnoxiously large desk in the Bad Guys' lair, turning his back on the rest of the room to focus entirely on the call. "Look," he began, and already a chunk of his cold, professional manner had thawed. "This hasn't turned out exactly the way I wanted it to, okay? I'm aware of that. It's outta control and it's my fault but I can fix it. In fact, I'm the only one who can."

"Why's that, 'cause you're one of us?" Peter scoffed. "You gonna un-kidnap all those people? Let everyone go home? You gonna lead the rebellion on your own campaign?"

For the first time, Nathan's temper cracked. "Because I'm the only one who cares if you're alive or not, Pete!"

His cry tumbled away into an empty, ringing silence. Finally, Peter found his voice enough to reply huskily, "You don't know that."

And as if this was precisely what he'd been afraid of, Nathan made a tiny sound in the back of his throat. Peter knew it well. Once upon a time that tone had been all it took to gently nudge a misbehaving kid brother back into line. "Peter," he tutted, so quiet it was more breath than voice, as if that was all he trusted himself to release without losing his temper entirely. "C'mon. Don't go there. That's crazy talk, you understand?"

Gripping the phone harder, Peter crept toward the little store's window as far as the cord would allow. Searching for the top of a tousled, raven-haired head between the aisles, for the life of him couldn't recall a time Nathan, or anyone else, had ever gone grocery shopping for him. Or thrown him from a window to save his life. Not to mention stolen someone else's clothes to spare him from freezing to death...

"I'm not crazy," he said quietly.

"You're confused. You're tired. I get it," Nathan tutted again, and somehow each word was impossibly softer than the one before. "But now is not the time to go rescuing one of your strays. This is Sylar we're talking 'bout. 'Kay? He's a psychopath. He's not your friend."

Peter tore himself away from the window and back to the ancient phone booth. "I know who he is."

"He's a murderer, Peter."

"He may be a murderer, Nathan, but he's got more of a soul than you!"

Peter hadn't planned to say it, but there was no taking it back. And once the words were out there hovering before him, as stark as they were unexpected, he realised he believed them.

As all the emotion so skilfully held at bay until now claimed Nathan in quick succession, the fog of Peter's started to clear. "I know you might think I'm the bad guy here, Pete, and maybe I am, but you've gotta believe me when I tell you you're making a mistake. The minute Sylar attacks someone the order will come down to kill you both and I won't be able to contain it! Turn yourself in now, I can protect you. Choose him, and you're signing your own death warrant."

Peter reeled, the fear in Nathan's voice striking him in a way none of his previous claims had succeeded.

For a shameful heartbeat out of time, Peter imagined what it would be like to surrender. He only got as far as picturing Sylar returning, laden with bagels and coffee, to find the parking lot empty and the old clunker gone. And somehow Peter knew without having to know how that Sylar wouldn't even be surprised to be abandoned yet again, for the countless time, by just another liar who'd only stuck around long enough to get what they wanted from him.

( )

"I promised I'd help him, Nathan. I'm not coming back until I've seen this through."

"Pete, listen to me -"

"If you really care about me, don't look for me."

"You're making a mistake -"

"Bye, Nathan."

"Peter!"

When the line died, Nathan cursed and threw his phone across the room before remembering he was at work. Peering through his office window into the observation lab beyond, he spotted more than a couple of analysts hastily turning back to the sea of data screens before them. The orchestra of clacking computer keys quickly resumed. Dammit.

Pulling himself together with a strength of will of which he knew his father would approve, Nathan collected his phone from under a towering filing cabinet and calmly returned to his desk, smoothing his tie.

It would probably take the tech guys minutes at most to trace the location of Peter's call. Surely he would have considered this before picking up the phone? No, Nathan realised just as quickly. The thought probably hadn't even crossed Peter's mind in the split-second between making the decision and tumbling head-first right into it. But this advantage was no good to Nathan anyway: all it would do was send an unsupervised Danko right to his brother with a two day head start and a body bag in tow.

Reluctantly, Nathan met eyes with the beautifully framed photograph atop his desk, watching him the way she always did. "I'm the one looking out for him, Ma," he muttered to Angela's portrait.

Because Nathan wasn't the one Peter needed protecting from; he was more certain of it now than ever. Maybe the biggest risk wasn't even Sylar, or the unhinged crusade the pair had apparently struck up, or to a different extent even Agent Danko. No. As the foolishly irresponsible phone call had just reminded Nathan: Peter's biggest danger had always been himself.

Getting to his feet, Senator Petrelli grabbed his coat from its stand by the door. He stormed through the clacking tech lab without a backwards glance. He burst open an emergency door and took the stairs to the rooftop two at a time, never once looking up from the message he was speed-typing to Danko requesting the team's immediate coordinates.

The only saving grace, he thought bitterly, was the fact he wouldn't need to draw attention to his exit by calling in a chopper.

( )

This was the part Sylar always relished. Watching arrogance retreat in light of harsh reality. The realisation that his victim had only been lucky until now, not invincible; that delusions of being safe and tough and normal wouldn't be enough to save them in the end.

Blood pounding, a dark, velveteen hunger uncoiled from its dormant state within the killer. And the tighter Sylar squeezed the spluttering store owner's airway, the more he examined him pinned to the wall like a helpless moth, the more he understood what exactly made the man tick...

The idea that one of 'them', the damned, could ever intrude into his world hadn't once been considered by the store owner. The thought he might ever be at risk had never occurred to him until now. He didn't know how to react in this moment – a combination of rage, defiance and terror wafting from him like smoke – because he'd never feared for his safety before, having navigated life in a world designed for his comfort. He'd never been an outcast. He'd never been afraid. He'd never had to run. And he didn't care about those who had, because it didn't affect him.

The store owner made a horrible rasping sound as he gasped uselessly for air. It would be easy to hurt him. Sylar wanted to.

But was it worth what would come after? Taken aback by how quickly it flared within him: Sylar realised that no matter how he chose to spin the story later, how justified he might feel or how satisfying it may be to teach this man a lesson he wouldn't forget in a hurry, that Peter wouldn't see it the same way.

And Sylar wasn't sure he could endure another agonizing, disappointed silence like yesterday's post-laundromat punishment.

"W-what d'you want?!" The store owner croaked, turning purple now. Still holding him in place, Sylar slowly raised a forefinger, and enjoyed the way the man flinched when he pointed instead at the forgotten cup of coffee still sitting on the counter top.

"Decaf?"

( )

Peter didn't know how long he'd been pacing back and forth by the old clunker. Long enough that the reality of having called Nathan had began to settle upon him; not so long that his brother's voice had stopped ringing inside his skull.

'You wanted an apology, is that it?'... 'You're making a mistake'... 'That's crazy talk'... 'I'm the only one who cares if you're alive or not, Pete...!'

The sight of Sylar sauntering toward him with a backpack of loot, a steaming paper cup and an immensely pleased look on his face cooled Peter's temper, instantly.

"Breakfast is served. Drink slowly, we're not pulling over to pee every five miles."

With a flick of two fingers Sylar popped the car door open as he approached and slung the backpack full of water bottles and snacks across the backseat without so much as spilling a drop of coffee. He made it all look so easy. Maybe it was, for him. When Sylar eyed him over the rim of the cup (perhaps waiting for a laugh, or just a simple thank you) Peter couldn't help but worry his stupidly impulsive phone call and everything he'd said to Nathan was stamped across his face.

"All good out here?" Sylar asked, a little suspiciously. He held out the steaming cup in offering.

Peter accepted it, feeling any residual anger melt away. "All good," he said, realising, as he climbed back into the faithful old clunker and took a sip of terrible, burned coffee, that he meant it more than he thought he would.

It was like some strange, magic incantation; like simply saying the words made it true. The rest of a bright, uneventful afternoon scrolled past to the symphony of groaning gears, the steady navigation of radio stations, and the contented silence of two fed, happy stomachs. Most importantly though, as the gas station fell further behind miles of twisting green and copper forests, Peter noticed Nathan's voice in his head didn't seem to have followed him.

Sunlight filtered in threads through the clunker's dirty windows, dappling patterns onto the new, crisp map that was actually coherent this time, thank god. It wasn't too long after setting back out on the road that Peter almost upturned the cold dregs of coffee over Sylar in his haste to show him a tiny town nestled on the outskirts of Fort Wayne forest, Indiana, labelled 'Woodsend', just like Samson Gray's note.

"No 'Solace', though," Peter said through a mouthful of beef jerky, settling in for a long, overnight drive. "But it's a start, right?"

"I suppose," Sylar drawled, drying his face with his sleeve, "there's only one way to find out."

( )( )( )

Sylar blamed the luxury of a hearty stash of snacks in the backseat, and not the new lead to finding his father – nor the easy conversation unfolding within the car – for making a brilliant amber sunset dazzle him through the windshield far too soon by his calculations.

By the time curtains of dusk drew across the twisting country road detours before them, Peter had already made a valiant attempt at feigning interest in the intricacies of time pieces; in turn boring Sylar with endless stories of his favourite superhero comic books and their accompanying multiverses; for which Sylar repaid him by positing the debate whether any heroic deed could ever be an unselfish one ("Please. You're telling me Kirby Plaza didn't tickle your ego at all?", "Wh-? I exploded!", "And what a nice little display of bravery it was for your audience, I'm sure.", "I can't say, I was a little busy trying not to kill them all to notice...")

If either man was aware of how smoothly the topics flowed into one another, and how they never seemed to run out of things to talk about, they left it to the other to acknowledge first. Neither did.

The men pulled on their jackets once the copper forest around them faded into a chilly, inky black expanse outside, and soon sleepy stretches between conversations were filled by the static-y voices of late night radio talk shows. Sylar couldn't say exactly what time Peter fell asleep beside him. He noticed it sometime between a lonely heart caller seeking advice for an unrequited love and a remorseful lover dedicating a song in apology of walking out when things had gotten too serious. There was something unexpectedly comforting about driving through the void, darkness having blotted out everything from existence save the rattling old clunker, an occasional passing semi-truck or campervan, the remaining two bags of chips Sylar was beginning to wish he'd rationed better, and Peter's quiet breathing at his side.

After grudgingly letting the hero take the wheel upon his waking, Sylar found it a lot less pleasant struggling to drift off in his place. Letting down his guard next to a conscious Peter Petrelli was very different than last night's method of sneaking into slumber unwatched, he discovered. That, and the scrap of notebook paper stored safely in Sylar's pocket seemed to burn hotter with each mile devoured beneath the tires.

At the rate they were travelling, even having taken the long route to bypass as many cameras as possible, he could still be standing before his father as soon as midday.

Finally, a state of half-sleep clawed at him, dreams leaking across consciousness like a hologram projected before unfocused eyes. Smoke, pancakes, and hands. Hands grabbing at him: some angry and bony; some greedy and electric; some strong and so warm...

"Sylar." Peter's voice reached him from a different dimension. Sylar felt a tug of equal loss and relief when he was shaken back to reality and the hands fell away behind him, clutching uselessly in the darkness.

Blinking to orient himself, he registered the familiar trundling of the old car below him, and that it was still as dark outside as the last time he'd looked. Beside him, Peter glanced in the rear view mirror, his brow furrowed and lips slightly pursed in concentration.

"I think there's something back there."

With heavy limbs, Sylar span clumsily in his seat to look out the back window. Nothing greeted him save perpetual blackness beyond the soft red glow of their tail lights. "Tell me you didn't just wake me 'cause you're scared of the dark," he grumbled, settling back down to get comfortable.

"I'm serious." Peter reached up and adjusted the mirror as if willing it to zoom in on what he couldn't quite make out properly. "I keep catching sight of something. Might be a van."

Sylar's stomach plummeted. What were the chances his infamously trusting travel buddy had developed a sudden case of paranoia? And if someone was drivingback there, what were the chances a normal civilian would be tailing them this late at night, in a black incognito vehicle, likely using night vision goggles to see in the dark?

"How long?" Sylar asked, strangely longing after his creepy, grabby half-dreams if they spared him from this.

"'Bout half an hour. Maybe."

Sylar cursed, any hopes of sleep long gone. Night vision sure as hell would be a good ability to have right about now, he thought hungrily, and forced away the gnawing need to hunt and steal such a power for his collection. Instead, he rolled down the broken passenger window with all the grace of a regular, powerless, recently-awoken pleb.

Peter cast him an anxious look but didn't say anything when Sylar leaned out the window into the cool, fresh wind that sent his hair whipping about his face. He only hesitated for a moment before sending a crackling ball of lightening-blue electricity bouncing behind them into the night.

There was a single second, just one, where Sylar saw light reflect off a sleek, shiny black body. Then headlights blinded him the same instant a series of loud popping noises echoed throughout the forest.

( )

Shit! Peter flinched as a slew of bullets or darts – he couldn't tell which – peppered into the old clunker and shattered the back window, punctured a tire and sent the vehicle lurching in his grasp. Throwing himself on the steering wheel, it took all his strength to wrestle the car firmly onto the road and away from the bottomless pit of darkness on all sides.

"How the hell did they find us?!" Sylar yelled, still leaning out the passenger window, fighting back with lashes of telekinesis and bolts of electricity that illuminated the car's interior.

Peter's insides somersaulted. Despite trying not to think it for the past half hour, he thought he knew precisely how the stalking hunter had picked up their scent...

"Can't you stop them?" he shouted back, ducking as something small shot past his head and struck the windshield with an ear-splitting CRACK!

Vaguely, as the window shattered like ice, Peter was aware of Sylar casting his greatest curse yet and headlights veering off course in the rear-view mirror. Then everything was obscured by a thousand tiny shards of glass raining in upon him. Peter protected his head on instinct, barely feeling the cuts that tore across his arms and hands, but letting go the steering wheel for even just that second was enough.

The entire car whined in complaint before spinning out of control: its wheels locked up tight, skidding and twirling and swept up in an invisible whirlwind that raged within the velvety black nothingness of night. Losing all bearings, Peter was forced to give up and just haul Sylar back inside by his shirt, close his eyes and wait. Wait. Wait for whatever came next.

And like a giant, invisible hand had grabbed the vehicle mid-spin, the old clunker clunked to its last, clattering stop. When everything settled, all was still. All was quiet, save the tinkling of fallen gears, glass and broken metal organs scattering away across the road.

When Peter roused, it was to all the air having been knocked from his lungs and a blurry face swimming before his vision. "Peter?" the man called, an uncharacteristic tone in his voice a lifeline that reeled Peter fully into consciousness.

And then he was awake, and only a few seconds had passed, and he blinked Sylar into focus but didn't have time to dwell on the realisation that it must have been him who had saved them, Sylar whose telekinesis had stopped the old clunker from tumbling into the night, because lastly Peter remembered the pursuing vehicle. And in the beam of one remaining headlight he saw it: upturned in a ditch in the shadow of the treeline, discarded like nothing more than a harmless, dropped toy.

Oh god.

Nathan.

( )

Thrumming with adrenaline, Sylar reached across the scratched and bruised (but thankfully living) empath to turn the key in the ignition. "If we're lucky, it might hold together long enough to put some distance between -"

"What did you do?"

Sylar followed Peter's anguished, blazing glare through the jagged picture frame where the windshield used to be, to the spot the smoking wreck of the enemy van had landed. Sylar frowned when the glare then turned his way. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like. "You asked me to stop them," he said.

"Not like that! Jesus, Sylar, you mighta killed them!"

Sylar watched the empath's fingers fumble to release his seat belt, then without hesitating he kicked open his door and tumbled out onto the road – until Sylar lunged after him and gripped the man's wrist, holding him tethered to the car. "What're you doing?"

"If anyone survived, they're hurt. We have to -"

"We have to keep moving. We can't risk it."

For the first time, something closer to disgust pierced the fog around Peter. He twisted in his captor's hold, but Sylar didn't let go. "We can't just leave them here!"

"They're the scouts, Peter. The others will be here any minute so we have to move now."

But Peter didn't. "I... I called him," he blurted unsteadily. "Nathan. I called him at the gas station. That's how they found us."

Sylar took a moment to fight back the wave of incredulity that walloped him over the head. "Y-? What?"

"I told him to stop looking for us, I told him to leave us alone -"

"What the hell were you thinking?!"

"I wasn't, I just -"

"Clearly!"

"Look, I'm sorry, okay, but this?" Peter gestured at the upturned van. "They're only here 'cause of me! And I won't let them die!"

Sylar closed his eyes, summoning a patience he hadn't known he possessed. While he wouldn't enjoy being the one to blame, he'd rather find out the emasculated gas station owner had called the authorities on him, over this. "Peter, listen to me. You didn't make them do anything. They chose to be here. This isn't worth dying over."

The pair glared at each other in the dim morning shadows. And when Sylar dropped his eyes to his fist locked around the hero's wrist (the same wrist, he noticed unpleasantly, that was already marked with the bruise of his touch) he felt the realisation break over them both that none of the easy hours from earlier, the secrets spilled last night, nor even Sylar's gracious sparing of a life earlier had made a difference and none of it changed anything in the end. For when it came down to it: here they stood back where they'd always been, the hero and the villain, destined forever to be on opposite sides of the line.

Or maybe that wasn't entirely true? Because the static in the air never ignited into the deadly type of battle these two would have started once upon a time.

"I'm not waiting here for your brother to find us," Sylar warned, somehow calm despite the painful drumbeat pounding inside his rib cage.

But Peter only shook his head, dark hair trailing across his face, and when he spoke now his voice was steady. "Then go without me."

This time when Peter tugged his arm, he pulled free. And when Sylar watched, with that drumbeat stabbing at his lungs, as the hero raced into the darkness without stopping to look back, he couldn't say if he had just escaped or if Sylar had chosen to let go.

( )

Head spinning, Peter didn't linger on the searing pain that tore through his chest and just ran, already tasting smoke burning at the back of his throat.

He tried not to think of Sylar's last mask: like the face of a killer he'd once known. He tried not to think of Nathan. Tried to convince himself there was no way his brother could have found him on these roads so fast, even if he'd flown here from D.C. the moment their call had ended. But he knew, deep in the tender depths of his heart, that after hearing his voice Nathan was no longer able to sit it all out from the sidelines.

And maybe that was the reason Peter had called him in the first place.

He ran on pins and needles until the smoking wreck of the van bloomed into view at the bottom of the ditch: its wheels aloft, its nose crushed flat against a tree. With no time or light to locate the source of the smoke, Peter surrendered to a mix of training and instinct as he slid down a muddy slope towards the driver's door.

His first, awful, reaction was relief. Of the two shadows just visible inside the van, dangling upside down in their seatbelts, he knew instantly that neither of them were his brother. But it didn't matter that these people had just shot at him or likely turned him over to the enemy already – Peter wasn't about to let them die here.

He tugged at the door but it was wedged shut, the steel bent like a crumpled piece of paper. Breathing quickly, Peter threw out a hand and hauled at it with all the strength his telekinesis possessed. It creaked in protest before popping at the seams and thudding to the ground. In the flooding interior light of the car, sparkling blood patches blossomed through the agents' masks. Neither of them were moving.

The driver, smallest and lightest of the two, didn't stir when Peter gathered her into his arms before severing the bonds of her seatbelt with a slash of telekinesis. The smart thing would be to carry her to the road then return for her companion, he knew, but the smoke was billowing thicker now, making it harder to see, and the nearby drip, drip, drip of gasoline was growing quicker by the second, and the acrid smell of it was burning in Peter's nose, and truthfully he knew if he returned to the road he wouldn't make it back again in time, that he wasn't able to save them both on his own –

Thump.

A tall, slim figure had appeared on the far side of the passenger window, just visible through the cracked webbing of glass. And even if he hadn't recognised the familiar shape of Sylar, or looked back to find the old clunker still waiting for him on the road, Peter was sure he'd never been so grateful to see anyone else in his life.

'I'm the only one who cares if you're alive or not, Pete!'

And it didn't matter where he was, or what was about to happen next. Because something shivered through Peter with blinding certainty, and he knew it now, from deep down in his core, that Nathan was wrong.

A/N: Ah, the days of pay phones and paper maps X)

Thanks again for so patiently waiting for this next update! If anyone has figured out yet how to stop time please let me know, and you'd be getting updates daily at that point X) I hope you enjoyed this chapter, there's plenty more where this came from and I wonder how our boys will manage with the bad guys heating up the chase...

Honestly, writing this and the next chapter has been a relief through some pretty tough times irl, and I'm so grateful as ever for this fandom and my boys, and of course for you beautiful readers for taking this journey with me X) Thank you as always for your patience, dedication and feedback. I'll always try my best to get back to you, even if it takes a while.

P.S. Go check out my new artwork for this fic over on my Gallery!