Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or situation and this story was written for fun, not profit.
Author's Note: This is my first foray into the world of slash. It's really very non-sexual (just a kiss) and that's not the main focus of the story, but it's there, so be warned if that's not your thing. Also, this is the first in a three-part Wishverse series, but the other chapters will not be slashy and will be focused on different characters.
There were ten hours until the end of the world, and Rupert Giles had given up. When he originally read of the Harvest exactly two months ago, he had tried every possible means of circumventing it. When he realized that there was really nothing he could do without the aid of a slayer, he had broken his cover, and with it the first rule of the Watcher's Council. But it had all been for naught, as the thick-headed boobs of this godforsaken town just rolled their eyes at the crazy foreigner, ignoring every piece of evidence he offered them.
Some small solace had come in the form of a petite, red-headed tenth-grader named Willow. She was one of the few students at the school with whom he was on a first-name basis, as she would come to the library almost every lunch hour. They barely spoke, but he grew to appreciate her company. And she never touched the books with grimy fingers, or dog-eared the pages, or kept her page by leaving the book open and facedown on the table. In short, she was not only his favourite student, but the only one he even remotely liked.
And so it pleased him much more than he would ever admit when the day after he had tried and failed to convince the town to evacuate, she showed up in the library, a resolute look on her face and said that she believed him and wanted to help.
"You?" he had asked, "You who checks out books on biology and computers and calculus but never on history or literature or art?" The words came out harsher than he had intended, but he wasn't quite ready to believe that someone in this town might actually understand. He had been let down too many times. Been alone here for too many months.
She surprised him by firing back almost angrily, "Seventy percent of the books in this library are about monsters and prophecies and slayers. Did you think I was stupid? Did you think I was blind?"
He had thought so in fact. But he did not tell her that because she already knew. He just handed her a book and told her to get to work if she wanted to help. "There had to be an answer somewhere," he had said, despite having not believed that for a while. She made him want to reassure her and in doing so he reassured himself.
She had brought her friends Alexander and Jesse along the next day, but they joked around and were obviously only indulging her. Jesse didn't come after that first day, but Xander stayed. He wasn't much use when it came to researching and he spilled coke on an eighteenth century text, but Giles refrained from scolding him too much. After all, he was doing what he could and that was more than almost anyone else in this town.
The fourth member of their research group arrived a week later. He had been in the library only once before, but Giles remembered because he gotten a book on guitars. And also because he was short but somehow hadn't seemed short. His name was Daniel Osbourne. This second time he came to the library he seemed a little…different. Rupert couldn't quite place the change, but it was there. He found out why in a moment.
"Hey, Oz," Xander greeted him. "How's life as a rock god, groupie-magnet treating you?"
"Not so great actually," he replied to Xander, but with his gaze firmly pointed at the other side of the table, where Rupert and Willow sat. "Devon's dead."
"Oh, jeez man. That's really harsh. Was he…I mean, was he sick or was it…" It was obvious Xander didn't want to hear the answer. His initial sense of humour about what he called "the supposed apocalypse" had faded over the week of research.
"They say he was stabbed."
"But he wasn't, was he?" asked Rupert.
Daniel shook his head. "I saw it all. Barely escaped. I remembered hearing that you had been…"
"Ranting and raving about the end of the world?" Rupert offered.
"Something like that. And I wanted to know if—"
Willow spoke for the first time. "Pull up a chair. We've still got three weeks left." She smiled at him and that was that. Rupert saw the look the boy gave her as he sat down and was glad that at least she wouldn't be alone for what would probably be her last three weeks alive.
As it turned out, she didn't get three weeks. Two and a half was more like it. Somehow word had gotten out to the vampire community that there was a group of students and a librarian attempting to thwart their plan. Six of them came one night just after sundown. Rupert was in the bathroom and therefore managed to miss the entire thing. That's how fast it happened.
From what Daniel told him later, they came through the windows. Rupert can hardly imagine how frightened they must have been to hear the windows smashing one by one. They were only children after all.
They all ran for the box of weapons and crosses behind the desk. Oz got there first and held up the large wooden cross that happened to be on the top of the box. In the split-second it took him to grab it and look up, they had gotten Willow. Xander attempted to save her after she was already dead, poor fool (or lucky fool, Rupert couldn't quite figure out which) and lost his own life for his effort. They took the bodies with them and Rupert hoped against hope that didn't mean what he knew it must.
After that day, Rupert and Daniel ceased researching. Instead they spent their days whittling stakes, bottling holy water, and working on recruiting students and other townspeople. Their recruitment was generally unsuccessful and even the normally unflappable Daniel was begin to show signs of frustration at the willful ignorance of his fellow citizens.
And so it came to be that ten hours before the end of the world, Rupert Giles had given up. He had a weapons store large enough for a small army, but no one to use them. He could have had this entire town evacuated by now and yet they were continuing about their business as though they had nothing to fear.
In this newfound spirit of giving up, Rupert was getting positively drunk. It didn't really matter at this point if that miserable little weasel Snyder fired him, did it? Daniel found him blowing bubbles in a glass of whiskey with a straw in the middle of the library at nine o'clock in the morning.
"Ah, young Master Osbourne," he slurred, "you'll come join me for a drink, won't you?"
"Not really in the mood."
"Piffle. This is the first day of the end of your life."
"Exactly."
"Oh, and what's the supposed to mean Mr. Abstinence? And you fancy yourself a real musician."
"It means I want to appreciate what's probably my last day on earth."
"Oh, trust me when I say I'm appreciating it. Do you see me whittling any more of those damned stakes? I've given up and it's bloody fabulous!"
"You haven't given up," Daniel said in that annoyingly self-assured way of his. Actually, Rupert hadn't remembered it being annoying until now. Unfortunate side effect of the whiskey perhaps.
"Oh, is that so?"
"If you had given up you'd be on a one-way trip back to England."
"I suppose I would, wouldn't I? Stupid to stay here either way. I did what I could. These people will only get what's coming to them."
Daniel just pulled up a chair, in his silence seeming to articulate every single thought and feeling flowing through Rupert. Seeming to say that Rupert had made himself one of "these people" months ago.
"You should leave though Daniel. You've done all you could. You're young. Shouldn't let dreams go unfulfilled." Rupert knew this advice was futile, but it felt good to have someone to give advice to.
"Actually, I don't have too many unfulfilled dreams. Just two and one's impossible anyway."
"Willow."
"That time I came and got that guitar book—it was the first time I saw her. I followed her in here and then I thought I should get something. I know it sounds creepy, but I loved watching her read. She would get this look on her face like she was so excited to be learning whatever it was she was reading about. That's what I was thinking about the night Devon died. That I was going to ask her out."
"Why Daniel, I do believe that is the most I've heard you speak since we met."
"Yeah, well, the end of the world can throw a guy off a little."
"I was given training in grief-management, you know? 'Your slayer will die' they told me. 'Always remember that. Guilt will do you no good.' I prepared myself to think of slayers not as girls but as weapons, one just like the previous one. Built to die, not to live. I should have prepared myself to think that way about Willow. Because I sure as hell don't need any more things to feel guilty about right now."
"I saw it. All of it. Just watched, hiding behind that ridiculous cross, almost as big as me. In that second, I thought about trying to help her, but I knew it wouldn't work. Knew I'd be more useful after the Harvest. But Xander—"
"Xander got himself killed," said Rupert sharply. "You did the smart thing. It's all well and good to act on instinct, but it's thinkers who make changes, get things done. Thinkers are the real heroes in this world."
Daniel looked skeptical. "You really believe that?"
Rupert laughed. "God no. Maybe. I don't know. I'm talking out of my ass as usual. I probably read that in the Watcher's handbook or something."
They sat in silence for a few minutes until Rupert suddenly remembered something. "What was the second?"
"Hmm?"
"The second unfulfilled dream."
"E-flat diminished ninth."
That took Rupert off-guard, but he felt oddly pleased, having mastered that particular chord some years before. "Really? Because I could, er, help you with that if you wanted."
"Really?" Daniel looked up.
"Well, the trick is really to play it in a song. When the chord comes in a sequence and the song really requires it, that's when you'll get it. I'd just have to head home and get my guitar." He stood up, or at least attempted to and almost toppled over the chair behind him.
"Maybe I'll drive," suggested Daniel.
"That might be best," Rupert responded sheepishly. "Thank you, Daniel."
"No problem." Oz started heading for the door. "Oh, and Rupert? Call me Oz."
After reaching Rupert's apartment and ingesting massive amounts of coffee, they started playing. They didn't stop for hours even though Oz mastered E flat diminished ninth after the first hour and a half. Oz taught Rupert a few new songs and Rupert taught Oz a few old ones, although he was pleased to learn that Oz already knew most of his favourites anyway. They listened to records and ate bread from the ridiculously expensive bakery down the street and went to the park, where Rupert told Oz about the time he played Frank N. Furter in Ethan's impromptu production of Rocky Horror.
By then there was one hour to go until sundown. They lay stretched out on Rupert's floor, surrounded by stacks of records, Cream blaring so loud that they had already had one complaint from that obnoxious old woman from next door. Rupert just told her that if she had any faith in him at all, she should spend the rest of the day with her husband, keep her door locked, and not invite anybody in. He was quite sure she wouldn't listen.
"So," said Rupert, rolling over to face Oz, "What shall we do now?"
And that was when Oz kissed him. It should have been inappropriate and it should have been wrong and it should have been a million other things, but what it was was perfect.
There was one hour left until the end of the world and two of the sweetest kids you'd ever meet were dead, or undead as it were. Most of this town would join them, and in their final moments they would realize they could have prevented, or at least delayed it. A bunch of men on the other side of the world had doomed 38 500 people (and probably more to follow) to die by deciding that the slayer would be of better use in Cleveland. Rupert Giles had failed his fellow citizens of Sunnydale including the young man whose lips were now on his. Had failed to secure them their future.
And none of that was okay. None of it was acceptable. But in this moment he remembered being young and he remembered being happy and he remembered tomorrow. And those memories, those feelings weren't enough, but they were all he had and he held on tight.