Fuck, Rupert was a right bastard, anyway. And an idiot.
Ethan stalked blindly through the tombstones. The fool knew that the Slayer would die. He'd known that for years. Known that before they'd even met.
It was the way of things. It was, almost, a promise.
And yet...
Rupert had been willing to die in her place. Hadn't even been willing to listen to reason. To anything.
Ethan should have known it would come to this. Maybe he had known. Maybe he'd always known. Even back when Rupert had been young and violent and wild, even then, even that rebellion had been all about the Slayer. Everything Rupert was revolved around her.
She was this thing that he'd loved before he'd even known her name, before she'd been born. Next to all that destiny and nonsense, what chance did anyone else stand?
What chance did Ethan stand?
He stopped abruptly and dropped down to sit on one of the tombstones, glaring at nothing in particular.
Idiot. He was the idiot, not Rupert.
He was an idiot for even thinking that this wouldn't have happened. That Rupert could have just let go. That he would have stood by and let her go to her doom willingly.
Rupert couldn't. Ethan knew him well enough he should have known that.
But that didn't change the fact that he hated him for it.
"*Boy* do I know how you feel!" a voice boomed.
A heavy hand pounded him on the shoulder so firmly he nearly lost his seat on the gravestone.
Then someone heaved themselves down beside him, jostling him over a bit.
This was quite unwelcome.
"Excuse me--" Ethan managed to say, scowling over at his unwanted companion, who turned out to be a very large man decked out in a flannel shirt and ripped jeans, all of which smelled quite strongly of cheap beer.
"Chad," the guy said, holding out a meaty hand. "Know just how you feel, like I said."
Ethan did not take the offered hand. Instead, he just stood, hoping to walk away without a fuss.
The man grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him back down and suddenly he understood.
This was no annoying, harmless drunk.
This was an annoying, vampiric drunk.
Glorious.
He hung his head, staggered by how utterly badly this night was going, and he just barely managed to realize in time that if he said, "Oh, just kill me now," the vampire would undoubtedly take it far too literally.
"See," Chad said, continuing to be annoying in spite of now also being terrifying, "You think that it's gonna be great. You're gonna rule the world. Then, some stupid little blond chick comes along and ruins everything. Don't you hate it when that happens?"
Ethan had a staggering moment of empathy.
"You have absolutely no idea," he said, with feeling.
"Yeah?" Chad said, "I hear you, my man."
Then there was a moment of what Chad probably considered companionable silence. Ethan frantically worked through escape plans.
He'd used the last of his incendiary powder earlier in the night, so that was out. Chad's grip was still iron-firm on the back of his shirt, and he doubted he could get out of it quickly enough to get away.
So, this was quite the quandary.
At least, it was... until Chad burst into a flurry of dust and ceased to be an issue.
Rupert, on the other hand, was very much an issue, and was fiery-eyed with rage, gripping a stake.
"Excellent timing, love," Ethan said, as he jumped up and danced back a step or two, brushing vampire dust off his shirt.
"What... the... hell... were you doing?" Low words, spoken dangerously, that sent a familiar flicker of terror and lust through Ethan.
"At that moment? Plotting my escape."
"In a cemetery, here, at night? Don't play with me, Ethan. What the hell were you thinking?"
Ethan crossed his arms, any trace of enjoyment and adrenaline leeching away.
"I wasn't actually thinking. And I'm certainly not suicidal. Unlike some of us."
Some of the fury went out of Rupert's posture at that. His arms went limp and the stake dangled from his fingers.
"You think I am?"
"No," Ethan said. This was mostly true.
Rupert sat down where the now-defunct Chad had been.
"I'm not, Ethan. I... I don't plan on dying. Not anytime soon."
Ethan shifted his hands into his pockets and couldn't look at Rupert. Of course he didn't. No one planned such things. Well, most people didn't, in any case. That really wasn't the issue.
He didn't think, anyway.
"I--" Rupert continued, "I can't apologize for what I did. What I intended to do. If I had it to do over, I'd do it again. There are larger things here than you and I."
Those words hurt, and Ethan couldn't help lashing out with, "She's *supposed* to die. It's what they do. One dies, a new one is called."
"A new Slayer, yes. But there will never be another Buffy Summers."
At this, the world had one of those dizzying moments of synchronicity and even the breeze seemed to stop in deference to the words. There didn't seem to be anything to say to that. At least, there seemed to be nothing that wouldn't sound horribly selfish at best or downright evil at worst.
Until finally the feeling he'd been struggling so hard to name finally found words in, "There will never be another Rupert Giles again, either."
Ethan sat down at the other end of the tombstone, not touching Rupert and looking down at his own feet lost in the shadows. "You're not expendable." He waited a bit, and then, feeling uncomfortably too sappy, he added, "In fact you're really quite vital."
Rupert didn't seem to have an answer to that.
The silence followed them home.
The End
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