Written for comment_fic on livejournal
Prompt was for Sylar, Revenge is a dish best served cold.
It had taken 50 years of training for Sylar to be ready. Peter had once trained with a group of 'special' monks for a century, so Sylar couldn't go in half-cocked.
Before that, it had taken 215 years to gather enough powers to really be sure that he could take Peter down. Slow and painful, with no chance at escape.
But the trail of bodies left behind would make it clear that Sylar was planning something for him. Something big.
Sylar was glad that Peter would have plenty of time to get scared.
In the twenty-first century, Peter had kidnapped Sylar's son. "For his own protection," Peter had claimed.
"Sylar, I love you," Peter had told him, "I love you so much that I'm not going to let you do something that you'll regret forever." One of Peter's mysterious dreams, Sylar guessed, or maybe one of his future selves again making a little temporal excursion to fuck with everybody's lives.
Naive, stubborn, self-righteous Peter. With the big puppy dog eyes and the pretty hair and the constant need to help Sylar redeem himself. Sylar knew it was a mistake to let him into his life. And his son's life. But he had no idea that Peter was capable of this kind of betrayal.
Peter flew away before Sylar could attack him, and Sylar cursed himself for being too slow, for letting his emotions overwhelm him. But how do you respond to finding out your lover has kidnapped your 8-year-old son?
Sylar searched for his boy but got nowhere. They had even had Molly's power removed from her so that Sylar couldn't find her and take it. He searched for Peter, knowing that Peter was surely the one raising the boy. But no results.
Sylar left a pile of bodies as he looked for them, going through everyone Peter knew. He knew that this would just strengthen Peter's resolve, make him more sure that Sylar was unfit to raise his own son. But he figured that wouldn't matter when he got his hands on Peter anyway.
Peter, it turned out, was very good at hiding. But Sylar was patient and methodical and, of course, undying, and so he just decided to look everywhere. He looked and looked for ninety years, never giving up hope until he went to visit his old house, the one he had raised his beautiful son in. He found an envelope in the mailbox addressed to Gabriel Gray, with Peter's handwriting. It was an obituary. For a ninety-eight year old man.
Sylar's grief turned to vengeance without much effort. But Peter had wisely decided to stay clear, and so after the power-gathering and the training, it took another 300 years to actually find him.
Then Sylar killed him. Permanently. Over the course a decade.
Revenge is a dish best served cold, Sylar knew. And while Peter and Sylar had been using their powers against each other, the non-specials of the world had been getting up to their own ambitions. The world was in a permanent winter by the time Sylar finished. He had barely noticed, viewing the catastrophes, the radiation, the clouding over of the planet, as minor interruptions to his longstanding game with Peter Petrelli. But now that it was finally done, Sylar had nothing left to do but sit and try and remember. He had forgotten much, and there was nothing around to remind him now. He could remember that he had loved Peter once. And that Peter had stolen his son. And then revenge. Revenge for a very, very long time.
Other than few facts, these distant images and sounds, there was nothing. For a year, then ten years, then a hundred years, then a thousand: still nothing. Just Sylar, the ice, and the cockroaches. He sat alone on the earth for a thousand years, trying to figure out why he could still remember revenge, but he couldn't remember his son's name.