A Little Thing Like Danger

"Sorry I threw you off a cliff."

Looking up from blowing into hands so cold he could barely feel them at all anymore, Peter peeked at the shadow standing guard at the mouth of a shallow overhang of grass and roots curving overhead. While this impromptu little shelter shielded him from the worst of the storm, Peter was still shivering so badly now he could barely stop his teeth from chattering. Sylar though, he thought, looked as unharmed and untouchable as always in the dark, sitting with his knees drawn up and elbows resting atop them, rain trickling down a face as stoic as a statue's.

Then a grudging smirk broke it. "Hey, hang out with you long enough, guess it was bound to happen sooner or later."

Peter meant to return an apologetic smile, but his lips were so numb he couldn't tell if they obeyed him. "Listen. About b-before?" he chattered, "I shouldn't have pushed you to t-talk when you didn't want to. It's none of my business. It wasn't fair to you, and I'm sorry."

Sylar's smirk faltered. His heavy brow sank low as he looked out into the night, watching the distant searchlight as it continued to roam, dreamlike, beyond the elongated shadows of trees.

"Maybe you should've left with Nathan when you had the chance, Peter."

"...What?" Hoping he'd misheard, Peter braced for an astute observation of his many failings in life (the latest leap from a deadly height now added to the list); or round two of their argument from earlier; or for the killer to simply scoff and call him 'Petrelli' and tell him how ridiculous he was for butting in where he wasn't wanted, but Sylar just said:

"She flinched."

Trembling, Peter actually looked around for a third figure to emerge from the trees and squeeze into this tiny shelter between them. "Who d-did?"

"Elle."

Oh. Peter swallowed, his throat suddenly tight.

Since coming to, miraculously alive, in Sylar's arms; since the man had died tonight to protect him; there was no doubt left in Peter's mind. He didn't need to feel Sylar's heart beating to know it was in there. He didn't need to hear what he knew was coming. But was it so wrong to want to know how deep that vein of empathy ran into the killer's soul?

Sylar sighed, watching the cloud of his breath dissipate through sheets of rain outside. "She knew I knew," he said quietly, "the game was up. But I didn't care that she'd lied to me. I think I'd already forgiven her. It was when I... when I reached for her. I wasn't gonna hurt her, but she..."

"Flinched," Peter whispered.

( )

Somehow it felt safe here in the dark, to confide. As if the privacy of the forest had cast its magic around the pair once again, as it had in that little clearing the first night.

For a wild moment Sylar imagined telling Peter that he hadn't taken Elle's ability after killing her. That he hadn't needed to. That hers was the only one to ever choose him return, that it was grafted to his person through a transfusion of empathy rather than stealing it post-mortem from its host.

It hurt less, though, to be seen as barbaric than as the fool she'd once made of him.

"I understood, then." Sylar frowned deeper, seeing not the endless forest before his eyes but a crashing tide, feeling rough sand against his skin and the heat of the fire that had failed to scorch away the pain of betrayal. "We were broken from the start. I realised she was never gonna trust me, that she was right not to. There was only one way to fix it, and something came over me but it wasn't the Hunger, and I could control it but I didn't want to, so I..."

It surprised him how easy the confession came. How natural it felt to look Peter in the face and not want to look away immediately.

"I ended it. Before she could do it to me."

Tired eyes roved between Sylar's, soft with concern. "You're afraid you'll do it again."

Sylar couldn't answer even if he'd wanted to. This close, it was impossible to ignore the hero's recent collection of cuts and bruises; the shadows of exhaustion framing his eyes; how far he'd pushed himself today because Sylar hadn't bothered to slow down for him; or how badly he was shivering here in the dirt, suffering a fate they both knew could be avoided if only Sylar were willing to share.

But Sylar didn't know how to be gentle with anything other than a time piece. He didn't know how to hold something precious without crushing it first, just to ensure it could never break again.

"I'm a killer, Peter," he said softly, "it's all I am."

Watching him, Peter swept his drying hair behind his ear where most of it refused to stay put. "I used to think that. Now I'm not so sure."

Sylar struggled to hide how deafened he was by the lack of alarm bells in his skull ringing 'lie'.

"You saved my life," the hero explained with a patience Sylar wasn't sure he deserved. "And not just tonight, or – or yesterday, or the day before. You haven't killed anyone since we left D.C. You helped those p-people back at the road. You coulda left me right here. I couldn't-t stop you. Probably reach Woodsend by sunrise, but you haven't. I dunno... that's gotta count for something, right?"

Sylar blinked, too astonished to get defensive. "It's been like three days, Peter."

"I know." The hero smiled. A small, playful thing that tugged at Sylar like a living force all its own. "Just think what you could do in four." Then the smile softened under the killer's rapt scrutiny. "Look, you've been hurt by a lotta people and you d-didn't deserve it, no matter what you've d-done. I think you're angry. I think you lash out so no one ever gets t-too close. But just 'cause you've already killed? Doesn't mean you have to keep doing it. It's not too late to change, Sylar."

Processing this with the care and attention he would a particularly complex gear in his workshop, Sylar eased himself back against the knotted wall of roots lining the shelter, stretching out his legs, crossed at the ankle.

Now that he knew, he couldn't believe he hadn't recognised it sooner: of course Peter was branded, like him. The hero had returned from the future bearing the unmistakable scars of murder. He knew the pain of trying to scrub it off his skin only to learn the deed would never wash away. He'd learned the toll it took to end a life, accidentally or not. That the world he'd used to believe in didn't exist in reality; that life was more complicated than naïve beliefs of simply 'good' and 'evil.'

And while Sylar was tempted to feel spectacularly deceived that the saintly hero guise had turned out to be another lie in the end... there was something immensely satisfying in feeling less ugly beside this man tonight than he ever had before.

"What makes you think I want to change?" Sylar murmured, watching the pouring rain.

With a soft exhale, Peter leaned across the space between them and nudged Sylar with his elbow. "Just a guess."

As he rocked with the unexpected motion, a truth Sylar had firmly refused to believe until now smothered him: the little idiot couldn't even help it, could he? No matter who he wrongly chose to trust, how many ridiculous mistakes he made, or who got hurt or died along the way, somehow it never changed the fact Peter Petrelli was still just... good. It was so unfair it was almost funny.

"Careful, hero," Sylar warned, "I could still leave you here to freeze."

If only to hide the fact he was smiling – and because there was only so long Sylar could listen to the sound of teeth chattering beside him, and because they couldn't risk a fire for the eyes in the sky, and because he suspected Peter wouldn't appreciate a full-body zap of electricity to warm him from the inside out, and because Sylar sure as hell wasn't going to part willingly with his healing ability – he impulsively lifted two fingers and twitched them.

With a yelp, something crunched over roots and leaves as it was reeled in on an invisible line. It didn't protest or recoil, and when the smaller, icy-cold figure came to rest against Sylar it stayed where it was put, trembling into his shoulder, robbing his body heat much less painfully than it would an ability.

Maybe there were worse things that could happen, Sylar quietly supposed, than delaying his mission again to rest here a while longer? Only for a few minutes. Just until the chopper was gone.

Watching the fading searchlight wash hypnotically behind closed eyelids, he wasn't prepared for how intimate it would feel when Peter slowly grew heavier against him. The empath's breathing became steady. His shivers finally subsided. And all the while, Sylar didn't know how to name the burn that throbbed concerningly somewhere in the vicinity of his sternum. Something like shame. Or indigestion. Or a heart trying desperately not to grow three sizes.

The searchlight had faded to nothing more than the glimmer of a dying candle by the time a voice spoke softly near his shoulder.

"Sylar?"

"Yes, Peter?"

Sylar waited, with the unfounded sense the hero had been working up the courage to say something else before changing his mind. "I'm not Elle."

And he knew then that Peter couldn't see her after all. For she was sitting right here, at Sylar's other side, watching him the way she had once, just waiting for him to open his eyes.

A helpless chuckle escaped him at the comparison. Because Elle would never have been stupid enough to nearly die of exposure in the middle of nowhere to save the lives of strangers. And were she able, she would have stolen Sylar's regeneration in a heartbeat to spare herself pain, even if it was strictly off-limits. She'd been smart enough to flinch when it had mattered, smart enough never to trust in his humanity, not to let herself get too close and lose sight of the monster, not ever.

Whereas Peter, Sylar was starting to understand, had never let a little thing like danger scare him off before.

"No," he concurred quietly, "you're not."

( )( )( )

Nathan Petrelli's voice crackled through Danko's headset, competing with the deafening rotor blades beating overhead. "I'm telling you, there's nothing here!"

Poised expertly at his perch, rifle in hand despite the low visibility conditions, it would take a lot more than blustering wind and smarting rain to throw someone with Danko's years of training off balance.

"I disagree," the agent drawled into his mic. "The storm will have slowed them down. They're out there, alright."

"They coulda teleported, flown, even stopped time the second they left the road – there's no telling how many powers Sylar has now!" When Nathan unfastened his safety harness to join Danko, the agent refused to move up and make room for him at the open door of the helicopter. "If we were only seconds behind them this morning, why didn't anyone find them at the crash site? Huh?" Nathan posited.

"Perhaps we overlooked something."

Danko's eyes lifted from his sniper scope to watch the Senator as the man leaned out to scan the rippling, rustling treetops below them, scrolling past in the blindingly bright beam of the searchlight.

"Or perhaps," Danko added, "someone let them get away."

With deceptive strength for an older, modestly-statured man such as he, the agent grabbed a fistful of Senator Petrelli's good overcoat and dragged his torso far out over the deadly drop. The suddenly-not-so-smug bastard really didn't seem to have seen it coming.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Nathan yelled, feet scrambling across the helicopter floor and arms flailing for balance. When they found none, he gripped Danko's wrist with both hands.

Even from this low-altitude flight, no normal person would survive the drop. And if Danko were simply to lose his grip... Petrelli would overbalance and fall over the edge, never to be seen again...

"You've been compromising this mission from the start, Petrelli," Danko growled, drawing pleasure from watching the man's designer, 'dry clean only' suit get soaked by the rain. "Giving free passes to your daughter and your Mama, conspiring with your brother, getting good agents hurt, commandeering my operation in the middle of nowhere when I know for a fact you were in D.C. that afternoon. How did you get here so fast without transport?"

Impressively calm considering the circumstances, Nathan's surprised brows sank lower and darker as he put the pieces together. "You gonna drop me, Danko?" he challenged.

"You don't seem too scared about that."

"Maybe I just don't think you've got the balls to do it."

"Or maybe," Danko deliberately adjusted his grasp on the Senator's good coat, letting it slip a little looser. "You know you'll survive if I do."

Apparently very comfortable with heights, Nathan struck the same easy, pearly-white smile Danko was sick to death of seeing slapped across his campaign trail. "D'you know what happens to people who throw US Senators outta moving aircrafts? Never mind the amount of paperwork involved? Have fun with that."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Petrelli. Your brother flew up here and abducted you. I tried to save you, but he was just too fast."

That winning smile slipped ever-so-slightly.

"Or maybe Sylar made you disappear. Just magicked you outta existence with a passing stray thought. There's no telling how many powers he's got now, isn't that right? I haven't decided which one he used yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something."

Petrelli's grip tightened around Danko's wrist. For a moment a flicker of true concern passed over his face, but the agent couldn't discern if he was fearing for his life or merely his political reputation once his secret was finally revealed beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Then that moment passed. "Do it," Nathan dared, releasing his hold on Danko to spread his arms out to either side. "What're you waiting for? If you're gonna do it, do it."

More than anything, Danko yearned to call the son of a bitch's bluff and throw him out into the roaring expanse of dark forest below...

He was still hovering on the brink of indecision, trembling with the strain of holding the Senator's body weight, when an incoming call crackled through both men's headsets, snapping them back to reality.

"Mr Petrelli? It's Legget, sir."

Nathan stole a second to compose himself. Then, still dangling spread-eagled out a military helicopter, eyes locked onto Danko's, replied, "What can I do for you, Legget?"

From his tone of voice alone, he could be currently standing at a shiny TV podium, not entirely at Danko's mercy. Politicians. Yet it seemed the analyst, Legget, sensed he was interrupting something even all the way from Building 26's tech lab in D.C. "We – uh, got a hit on the helpline, sir."

"Credible?"

"I'd say this one's worth looking into, sir, yes."

Agent Danko physically felt his chance to act time out. Then Nathan calmly heaved himself back inside the chopper, brushed Danko away, straightened his now drenched, misshapen coat and resumed his seat as if nothing unusual had happened at all. Son of a bitch.

"Patch me through then, Legget."

( )( )( )

The hands were waiting for him, right where he'd left them.

They shoved him to the ground. Held him there. Set fire to his nerves and seared fingerprints to the bone, hurting him, pinning him down while she devoured him on the floorboards of a big empty house, claiming him viciously, body and soul.

'Stay with me, Gabriel," she whispered, "stay where you can't hurt anyone else..."

She smiled down at him, exhilarated and dangerous and stronger than he was, and it didn't matter that she was dead because she was here with him anyway, immortalised forever in this tomb of their creation. Sylar wanted to apologise for trapping her in this memory, but Elle knew him better than that and kissed him before he could lie.

Her hands made him forget the pain. The loneliness. All the blood he'd ever spilled. They made him forget everything but her. Her eyes, her warmth, her hair on his face, the hope that burned within him brighter than the volts of their electrokinesis combined –

But then she flinched from his touch. And Sylar's heart splintered. And then she was burning, somehow untouched within the flames as if encased within amber, beautiful and wicked and fierce the way he'd always remember her.

But the others wouldn't let him keep her.

They crept in from the darkness, dragged him away from that burning beach. The hands tore at him, scarred him, broke him to pieces until he was screaming for a mercy he didn't deserve –

Then, all at once, they let go. And Sylar was entirely alone.

He wasn't as surprised as he ought to be to find himself blinking in the charred remains of what had once been a suburban street. The burned structures of houses stood like skeletons on all sides, their blackened, gutted innards fluttering through the air like paper. Except for one house, unharmed among the others, waiting large and proud and welcoming at the centre of the crater.

The Bennet house, Sylar recognised.

And then he was walking through the front door, and then he was standing in a bright, silent kitchen in Costa Verde. This was the room he'd once chased Claire Bennet through, familiar in spite of the broken furniture cluttering the space and the bodies strewn across the ground.

Then he found the only survivor, unmistakable kneeling on the ground with his back to Sylar: Peter Petrelli didn't seem to notice the intruder, so intent on something Sylar couldn't see. But when he crept closer he discovered a body cradled in the hero's arms, so small it could only be a child's.

Sylar couldn't see the boy's face. Just his race car pyjamas and slippers, slightly askew. Surprisingly, Peter wasn't trying to save him. Just holding him, as if this wasn't the first time he'd been here. Sylar watched him stroke the sleeping boy's hair and whisper to him, and wished something hadn't tugged in his chest and made him take another step closer, unable to resist...

Because Peter looked up and saw him.

Sylar only got one harrowing glimpse of the man's tear-streaked face before something jolted behind his navel, winding him, and he was kicked out of the kitchen, out the house, down the charred, blackened street, and fell a long, long way before landing back in the forest on the outskirts of Woodsend with the unsettling sensation he'd never really been asleep.

He roused, disoriented, within the tiny shelter of twisted roots and grass, raindrops trickling down the walls like tears. An invisible canopy of leaves whooshed somewhere high overhead. The storm was passing, the chopper long gone, now. The promise of dawn filtered through the playground of nocturnal animals as they scurried back to their nests until next nightfall, an army of unseen eyes watching, unblinking, like the taxidermied army left behind at Samson Gray's house.

Sylar breathed deeply. He traced over the rather disconcerting dream that had awoken him, wondering how long it would take for his pounding heart to slow back to normal. But the more he tried to recall the details, the more they faded away. Soon, all he could remember was Peter. Peter whispering something to someone he couldn't remember.

'I'm sorry,' he'd said, 'I'm so sorry.'

Finally, Sylar rolled over on stiff limbs. But the space beside him was empty. With another of those jolts behind his navel he bolted upright, only to spot the hunched silhouette of a man sitting on a log nearby, facing away into the night.

Damn Petrellis and their endless conspiring to terrorise him.

"What're you doing?" Sylar demanded, perhaps more accusing than was necessary.

Peter startled but didn't turn around. "Couldn't sleep." He cleared his throat, swiping a sleeve over his face. "Thought I might as well keep watch."

The lie tingled down Sylar's spine. "Bad dreams?" he asked.

"You too, huh?"

While Sylar wasn't about to admit it, secretly he took comfort in the fact he wasn't the only one to be creeped out sleeping in a dark, eerie, creature-infested forest (despite a host of abilities that made him more dangerous than any poor monster that might stumble upon them).

"Whose bright idea was it to get us lost out here again?" he grumbled. "Remind me to kill him when I see him."

The hero laughed unconvincingly, but it wasn't until Sylar had clambered free from the little shelter, stretched, and complained some more about sleeping on the ground like an animal or (god forbid) someone who camps for fun, that he noticed –

"Peter! You're shaking!"

When he reached for the hero's shoulder Peter tensed underhand, like he had every intention to pull away but couldn't find the strength.

"I'm alright," (another spine-tingling lie) "I'll warm up once we get moving." Peter stood, dislodging the touch in a manner that might have been entirely accidental, and when his eyes finally met Sylar's it might be easy to believe the smile he wore, had it only reached them. "You ready?"

As the pair trudged onward, in what they could only hope was the same direction they'd been following from the lost digital map, the killer shocked himself with the sudden, violent urge to find and kill a telepath just so he could eavesdrop on Peter's secrets. He pondered over the strange, tight feeling that had formed somewhere inside his ribcage since waking, and hated that he knew it hadn't been there before.

He didn't need an ability, though, to suspect Elle's wasn't the only ghost to have slipped into bed with them last night.

( )( )( )

The pastries had gone cold. Normally, having barely eaten for more than a day, this might be motive enough for murder. But the sun shone merrily upon a bright, fresh mid-morning in Woodsend town square, and Sylar found he didn't much feel like killing anyone.

Having hiked through a damp, chilly morning that clung to the woodlands like dew, the tired fugitives had finally stumbled onto the gloriously solid ground of a road just a few miles outside of town, hitched a ride on a welcome (although unaware) trucker's flat-bed and let it carry them West with a surprising lack of resistance. And as soon as he'd lost it, Sylar couldn't help but long after the energy and focus the forest had taken to navigate, if only for the excuse not to have to look at Peter too often. For his part, the hero had been unusually quiet too, except whenever Sylar chanced a glance his way Peter would meet his eye and smile.

And each time he did so, Sylar lasted a little while longer before peeking at him again.

In the rational light of day, the killer had started to convince himself he'd entirely imagined the strange intimacy of last night. That the nemeses had not, in fact, fallen asleep together to the rhythm of one another's breathing. That whatever he'd sensed was wrong with Peter that morning had been all in Sylar's head, that the spike in his chest couldn't possibly have been concern, and that perhaps Peter really had just been suffering from the cold...

As the flat-bed truck had finally rumbled past Woodsend's town sign, the first scatterings of dollar generals and exhaust shops preceded yards littered in stripped lawnmower parts, garden sheds and deckings with BBQs in every colour of the rainbow. Soon, these morphed into white painted fences, bigger houses with perfectly tended grass and trimmed hedges designed solely to put the neighbours' to shame. Low, clean streets had led to neat rows of storefronts, where a flag or awning fluttered invitingly over every window. At last, the quaint, humble town of Woodsend had formed itself around its visitors like a postcard of idyllic small town life set against a picturesque backdrop of endless ochre trees spanning into the horizon.

But now that he was finally here, sitting on a cold park bench with a once-warm pastry in each hand, Sylar couldn't help but wish it had somehow taken longer to arrive.

"You gonna eat those?"

When Peter sat down beside him, Sylar handed over a pastry without tearing his eyes from the ordinary people mulling around the ordinary square before him, like this was just another day in their ordinary lives like all the others that had come and gone before.

"Tell me you didn't just call Nathan." He took a generous bite of breakfast (it didn't seem necessary to tell Peter he'd bought two pastries each and polished off the first two while the hero took his sweet time to join him).

Peter huffed, amused. "I didn't call Nathan."

"Oh, so you're just naïve enough to think Samson would list his secret hideout in the phone book?" Sylar said snarkily, having emerged from the sugar-sweet warmth of the bakery to find a Petrelli-shaped void on the sidewalk where Sylar had left him. Mere moments later had he located a tousle-haired figure bundled into a phone booth nearby, probably caught red-handed in tearing down the world as they knew it, once again.

Sylar could have interrupted. But somehow the thought of being chased through town by an armoured TAC team, and further delay finding the man who made him, didn't seem like such the disaster it had yesterday when meeting Samson hadn't been such a real, looming possibility as it was today.

Peter shrugged beside him. "I called the local hospital."

Sylar looked at his companion, surprised. He could have gone without the unwelcome reminder of the state in which he might find his father, if he ever found him at all. "What?"

( )

"Yeah." Peter took a bite of fresh, buttery pastry, so hungry he would have eaten anything in that moment and thought it tasted like heaven. "Solace?" he said, mouth full. "I thought it might be the name of the place, but there's no 'Solace' in the book. Then I figured he coulda meant it literally, y'know: finding solace for his condition here? But they don't have any patients named Gray, or a Samson, or anyone on the prescription we found fitting his description."

Sylar frowned at him, and Peter got the sense he was fighting not to look impressed. Then, "His description?"

"I... estimated." Peter smiled a little. "Tall. Dark. Cranky when hungry. Something like that."

At this, Sylar thawed. He chuckled and devoured the rest of his pastry, and neither of them needed to voice the truth: that they were likely looking for an elderly, sickly man who was rapidly running out of time, if he hadn't done so already.

Honestly, Peter didn't blame Sylar for his crankiness. If even he was getting nervous at the prospect of finally meeting Mr Gray, Sylar had to be terrified, although of course he hid it well. Just days ago Peter might have been fooled by the wistful solemnity and attention to detail with which the killer was currently scouring Woodsend's town square. Patiently, Peter followed his eyeline.

The wide, open roads lined with neatly parked cars felt like a million miles from the perpetual traffic of New York City, and the sun seemed to shine brighter on this part of the world somehow, closer, with nothing holding the sky up without towering skyscrapers on all sides. But it was nice here, Peter decided. People looked relaxed. Happy. Secretly, he wondered how he and Sylar might look from their eyes: like two tired, starved fugitives with dirt on their clothes and twigs in their hair from having slept outside together, who shouldn't be able to sit here so comfortably eating breakfast on a sunny mid-morning after killing each other in the past?

Or like two ordinary people who had nothing incriminating to hide? Maybe even like friends?

But despite Peter's trepidation, nobody paid any attention to the wanted fugitives lurking in their midst. That's because people are selfish, Sylar had already assured him ("Trust me, Peter, don't give anyone reason to suspect you and they won't. How d'you think I walked right outta Primatech while they all scrambled around looking for me?"). If no one ever notices anything but themselves, Sylar had reasoned, how could they possibly recognise a Senator's missing brother from a different state? Just steer clear of the local law and they'd be fine.

Reluctantly, Peter had to admire the guy's confidence in hunting someone across the country with nothing more to go on than a name. Even if he didn't approve of how Sylar had gotten so good at it.

"Found him yet?" Peter asked lightly, nudging the killer's knee with his own.

"Something tells me it won't be that easy. It's not like they put his name and picture in the papers."

Until this moment, Peter had never considered how Sylar usually found his victims, including the hero cheerleader of Union Wells High School. Or that it was evidently a much simpler method than chasing a path through time travel and vague, prophetic paintings. He refused to dwell on this fact.

"Think you'll recognise him when you see him?"

Seemingly satisfied with his people-watching for now, the killer rose and led the way across the square. "We don't know he's anything like me," Sylar answered vaguely, "he could be anyone."

Following, Peter tried not to notice the young couple fastening a giggling toddler into the back of a mini van they passed, its bumper adorned with multi-coloured cartoon stickers. Until now, he'd done a good job pretending he hadn't spent an endless night trapped in the ruins of Gabriel Gray's kitchen. But now he couldn't help but picture it: had Gabriel installed a car seat like that once upon a time? Had Noah picked out stickers of his favourite characters to decorate the family vehicle?

Trying to shake off the irrational sense his nightmares had seeped over into the waking hours, Peter mused, "I dunno." He drew Sylar's attention to a surly-looking teenager dressed all in black, slouching his way across the square. "That guy kinda reminds me of you."

Sylar shot him an unimpressed look, but Peter was sure the man made an effort to cheer up after that. And right then and there Peter decided he'd rather explode every night in the fire of Gabriel's heartbreak than confess his part to play and give Sylar every right to hate him.

( )( )( )

Embarrassingly, Peter discovered part of him still expected Sylar to be capable of magically materialising over his target's shoulder like a creepy shadow in a horror film. It felt bizarre, as they ventured through gaggles of weekend shoppers and brightly-coloured window displays, to watch the guy have to actively search for leads just like everyone else.

They started at a roadside news stand, scouring local and tourist maps of the town, but none featured any place named 'Solace'. They ducked into a small, musty taxidermy shop, but the bright-eyed wildlife and unconvincingly sleeping pets bore no resemblance to the eeriness of Samson's craftwork ("I'm telling you, it's uncanny," Sylar insisted, thrusting another stuffed animal into Peter's face despite the scowls of the owners, "you'd think all beavers look alike but this one looks just like Detective Parkman! Okay, wait – tell me this osprey isn't Bennet. It's got his constipated expression down and look: markings like a tiny pair of horn-rimmed glasses..."). They sought refuge in the corner of a tiny internet cafe, but even after suffering the slowest dial-up connection in history found no results for a Samson Gray, a nearby Solace, or even Gray's Taxidermy back in New Jersey. Sylar even charmed the less-than-amused librarian into letting them access official town records, but the more they rifled through boxes of faded old paper, the more it began to feel as though Sylar's father were already gone from this world, had he ever existed at all.

Truthfully, Peter had expected more of a murderous-meltdown reaction from the killer. But with each dead they hit Sylar seemed only to grow more detached, like shedding weights he'd unwittingly been carrying all his life. If Peter didn't know any better, he might be tempted to suspect the guy's heart wasn't in it at all anymore.

Currently sitting at a table in the corner of a dark, sour-smelling bar & grill, Peter waited rather awkwardly while Sylar interrogated his way through any elderly men at the bar: a last-ditch attempt to rule out any potential, sickly-looking candidates.

He fought not to look as sympathetic as he felt when Sylar finally returned, alone.

"A toast!" The killer dropped merrily into the opposite chair, depositing two glasses of some unfamiliar-looking bourbon that prickled Peter's nose with the spice of its scent. "To failure! I had a good run, but it was bound to catch me sooner or later. Huh. Is this how it feels being you?" Sylar swallowed the contents of his glass in one, then croaked, bleary-eyed, "You gonna drink that?"

Before Peter could even say no, the killer snagged the second glass and downed it with a grimace.

"Are you sure?" Peter asked, more out of hope than anything. "Maybe one of them was lying?"

"They weren't."

Sylar said it so certainly that Peter believed him, even if he still couldn't quite explain the man's knack for sniffing out even a hint of dishonesty.

"The last guy thought I was coming onto him though, so on the bright side I'm pretty sure we have somewhere to stay tonight. Hey, Morty!" Sylar cried brightly over Peter's head, then pointed to the table. "Two more! Did I mention he's paying for these?"

Hunched at the bar, a balding old man raised a cloudy pint glass and winked.

Trying hard not to find Sylar's delirium so funny, Peter accused, "Are you drunk?" For all he knew, maybe downing straight spirits could counteract the speed of a regenerating liver?

Sylar laughed deeply, rocking so far back in his chair that Peter prepared to catch him should he fall. "God, I hope so."

Peter might have laughed with him if this uncharacteristic hysteria wasn't so concerning. "Okay. C'mon," he commanded gently, pulling the taller man to his feet before Sylar got arrested for propositioning old men all over town or – even worse – Morty could think to join them. "Come with me."

Perhaps only because he had no further fight left in him today, Sylar did so without question.

( )( )( )

"Seriously, Petrelli, what is it with you and heights?"

Peter's chuckle and two sets of foosteps rang around the metal, spiral staircase as they climbed. "I guess I always found it easier to think up high. It's... peaceful. Puts things in perspective."

"Perspective? Really?" Sylar puffed. "I think you just crave the danger of it. Either that, or you enjoy punishing yourself. There's a word for that, y'know..."

The killer's commentary died out when he joined the empath on a viewing platform where large, open windows surrounded every wall and great, giant gears rusted in the rafters overhead – a magnificent beast of a timepiece.

The library clock tower was easily the highest point in town. A proud historical landmark despite the fact the hands were frozen at the wrong time, that no bells had chimed all day, and no manner of repairs had ever managed to restore it to its former glory. When they'd come across this information in their scouring of town records earlier, Peter had bet Sylar would be able to fix it though, if he tried. Sylar had been quite tickled at that.

Now, he hated to admit it, but the longer he stood here with Peter, leaning together on the same window ledge, watching the sunset cast long spindly shadows across golden sidewalks, somehow his thoughts did seem clearer up here than they had back on Earth.

Sylar exhaled, deep and slow. "Maybe it's better this way. Maybe I was never meant to find him. Maybe that's not what this was about."

Reaching out through the open window ledge, he uncurled his fist and caught a last glimpse of lined, yellow paper before Samson's note fluttered away.

He could feel the man at his side watching him, silky hair trailing in the wind. "He wrote about this place for a reason, Sylar. That can't mean nothing."

"Please. Save me the doe-eyed-hero-who-doesn't-know-when-to-quit speech."

But the doe-eyed hero pressed on, as Sylar knew he would. "We can't just give up, not after we've come all this way. It's a small town, someone's gotta know something –"

"Don't tell me," Sylar interrupted, secretly grateful for the other guy's habit of being unintentionally entertaining. "We knock on every door in town? 'Excuse me, I'm looking for my father who abandoned me thirty years ago and who might be a superpowered murderer like me (if he's even still alive), are you him?'"

The faint, welcome spark of levity between the pair didn't last long.

"We could use an ability," Peter ventured carefully. "That girl, at Kirby Plaza, she could track people, right? I could find her, borrow her power. We'll find him, Sylar. There's still time."

And the fraying thread of Sylar's composure finally snapped.

"What's the point?!" he cried with a definitiveness he hadn't felt until he heard it. "He's gone!" And then it was fact. Then it was inescapable. "He's either already dead or he doesn't want to be found. It's over, Peter. Not every story ends in happily ever after. Not mine."

Peter's lips parted defiantly as if to argue some more, then closed. His gaze softened. And Sylar wasn't sure if he'd just done the impossible and got a Petrelli to admit defeat or if Peter was just going easy on him out of sympathy.

"Y'know, it's okay if you changed your mind," Peter said gently, and Sylar got his answer. "If you wanna stop searching, we'll stop. We don't have to go any further."

Burning with a sudden burst of shame, Sylar turned his back and fled to a different window, if only to create the illusion of space and privacy. The fleeting thought passed through his mind to throw Petrelli clean from this tower and destroy the only person alive who somehow kept finding such hidden, incriminating knowledge about him. The only person who seemed to see right through him as if the shields that were meant to keep him safe were only made of glass.

But then Peter followed and Sylar didn't want to shove him away. Peter's elbow appeared upon the stone ledge next to Sylar's, and he left his there anyway. It touched him, and Sylar didn't mind.

"Hey, if I ask you something? Would you be honest with me?"

Sylar eyed the smaller man in surprise. What a ridiculous assumption to make of him, yet Peter didn't seem aware of it in the slightest. As though trust and honesty were only natural and earned after having spent a certain amount of time in someone's company without killing them. As if it really was that easy, and not something that should be impossible.

And although Sylar knew he'd soon regret it, he heard himself say, "Yes."

( )

Avoiding Sylar's gaze, Peter studied the halo of gold igniting the feathered edges of the horizon where the sun had disappeared. "Why did you take me with you on the road? Really?" he asked. "I mean, you said so yourself, all I've done is slow you down from the start. You didn't need me for any of this."

Sylar thought on his answer for a long time. "I needed you to take shifts driving. Get here faster."

Peter laughed, kicking himself for getting carried away and actually hoping for the truth. "Ah. Maybe not your best decision." Unless of course the guy had planned to survive a car wreck and wander in the wilderness for more than a day...

Watching the glow of streetlamps spring to life like strings of holiday lights weaving through the world far below, Peter had every intention of leaving it at that for now, no matter how desperately he yearned to know the truth. And perhaps it was this that Sylar picked up on, that made him tense all over, heave a great sigh from somewhere deep down inside, and blurt the concession like it had just been tortured out of him: "Fine. You really want to know?"

Turning to him, Peter nodded in earnest.

The taller man squirmed on the spot, like it physically pained him to pry open the stiff, rusted doors on the Vault of Sylar's Truths. "It was the way you looked at me. Okay?"

When Peter just frowned up at him, confused, it seemed to release the killer's tension somewhat. His shoulders lowered from up by his ears and he rolled his eyes at the darkening sky, probably due to Peter's slow (in Sylar's opinion) processing speed.

"The last time we met, I threw you out a window and murdered your father," Sylar explained without looking at him. "Not exactly winning myself any favours. But, still, when you saw me... It had just been a while since someone wasn't afraid of me. I was intrigued, that's all."

Peter's heart thudded in his chest. His voice evaded him all of a sudden.

Could it be so simple? Even angry, even jaded, even guarded and arrogant and insufferable as he'd been that night in Bennet's storage facility... had Sylar really let Peter tag along on his mission just because he was lonely?

"You... you told me you wanted to be different," Peter managed a little huskily. "When my parents... lied to us? Guess I believed you."

Sylar scoffed, but it was softer than his usual, and Peter felt the last of the tension bleed out of the guy. "You were the only one who did. With no proof and no more to go on than the word of a killer and known liar, might I add. Of course you believed me."

"Alright, it sounds pretty stupid when you say it like that..."

While a now familiar, pleasant sound rumbled beside him, Peter covertly studied the taller man's profile. Sylar looked like himself again: weary and wounded but strong. Surviving. And although he knew he should be sick of it by now, Peter couldn't help but feel grateful to be alone again, just them. Here, away from the constant reminders of how far they'd fallen from normal life without noticing, it didn't seem so crazy to feel comfortable beside the superpowered murderer whose body heat and heartbeat had lulled Peter to sleep last night.

Suddenly it felt easier to stare pointedly at the impending storm clouds brewing on the horizon, than at Sylar.

And for the very first time it struck Peter also, the thought, the understanding, that perhaps he'd thrown himself so desperately into this mess just to be close to an echo of the man from the future, someone who'd hugged him without following it with an immediate betrayal, who was kind and who'd trusted him, who'd been delighted simply to set eyes upon him, because he was lonely too.

( )

"Thanks," Peter said, "for being honest."

"Yeah, well, no one will believe you, anyway."

Sylar didn't acknowledge it but he didn't pull away when Peter shifted beside him. He only had time for the bizarre thought that the hero was about to touch a hand to his back: a reassuring, familiar gesture one might give between friends, the kind of easy touch Sylar had never shared with anyone in his life; before Peter froze, and Sylar never found out what the motion was supposed to have been.

"What...?" Peter breathed, like he couldn't believe his eyes.

"What?" Sylar echoed, unsure.

But Peter didn't seem to have heard him, enraptured as he was by something Sylar couldn't see among the dark, blustering forest stretching out far into the distance.

( )( )( )

"There's nothing out here!"

"I saw it. I – I know it somehow."

"How could you possibly know it?!"

"From a dream, I think."

"A dream? You're getting us lost in the wilderness again for a dream? I swear, Petrelli..."

But Peter didn't seem to be listening to Sylar, never mind reason. He just marched through fallen leaves and tangled branches, undeterred and undaunted. It wasn't until Sylar unhappily crunched deeper into the darkening forest in the man's wake that finally he saw it too:

A small, wooden church, just visible through the trees.

It didn't look like much. In its day, it would have been charming: stout and homey and welcoming, nestled at the end of a hidden forest driveway. Now, the windows were either smashed in or boarded up; the crucifix nailed to the broken steeple was dangling valiantly by one arm; the mossy frame of a hanging sign was missing its placard; and the paintwork of the wood had faded from a once-proud white into a weather-beaten grey, chipped with age. The place must have been abandoned for decades, save as a hangout for local kids, if the graffiti and littered beer cans were anything to go by.

Strange, Sylar thought, how a simple structure could look both unbearably out of place and so painfully like home.

"You dreamed of this place?" he asked weakly, somehow unable to tear his captivated eyes away.

"Yeah, I... but I don't – Sylar?" Peter followed uncertainly when Sylar pushed past him.

Lightly, like he might have been sleepwalking, the killer climbed a rotten front porch, its rickety steps sinking underfoot. With a flick of a finger, he tore down the planks nailed across barricaded double doors. They creaked open to emit him with a single thought, the darkness within greeting its visitors with a wall of stale, clammy air that smelled of damp and old wood.

Inside, the men faltered at the atrium of a long, cluttered room, eyes adjusting to the dark. Then Sylar took the first step. A forgotten part of him was still surprised the ground didn't burst into flames beneath his feet.

Neither man made a sound as they ventured through the disordered nave of the church, swirling up dust in their wake, like if they did an unspoken spell might break somehow. Thin, dim pillars of twilight stretched through slats in the boarded-up windows, and the more Sylar looked at broken, piled-up pews, upturned candle brackets and loose pages fluttering across the floor in the wind, the more that strange, unsettling feeling began to tickle the corner of his mind.

It felt similar to using an ability, except he wasn't. It reminded him of absorbing the memories ingrained within the very fabric of the building, except he wasn't touching anything...

The sound of his name reached him from a long way away. "Sylar? You okay?"

Eyes unfocused, Sylar turned to the concern in the other man's voice. "I've been here before." The words left him so softly he was surprised Peter heard them at all.

"You -? What?"

"I've been here before, Peter," Sylar repeated, unmistakable this time. "A long time ago."

A/N: After another far too long wait, I'm so happy to finally share this chapter with you! Would you believe the Nathan helicopter scene wrote itself first try and never needed any re-working at all, whereas the rest of this chapter has of course kept me on my toes for months? The joys of being a writer XD

As always I'd love to hear your thoughts and theories so please, keep 'em coming! I hope you enjoyed some of the sweeter bonding moments between our boys this chapter, are intrigued about the mysterious dreams that keep cropping up, and curious to find out more about this church Sylar somehow remembers from a long time ago...

Thanks so much for reading, for your patience between updates and for returning to keep up with my story! X)

(P.S. Shoutout to poor Legget, the analyst Tracy freezes and shatters in Building 26, who in this AU doesn't die to prove a point and gets to live happily ever after with his family hehe)