Make Up Prompt 040 - Fiction for Doomed
Title: Doomed And Defeated
Author: Laurtew
Rating: PG
Word Count: 521
Prompt: 040: Doomed
Characters: Rupert Giles
Doomed and Defeated
“And the Slayer shall be defeated by the Son of Darkness. Her blood will be his to drink and with this, shall darkness reign.”
Giles brought a hand to his forehead, gently rubbing along his brow bone. He’d read this prophecy front to back, start to finish, and it continued to say the same thing. A new evil was going to rise to challenge the Slayer and this time Buffy would lose.
He sighed, leaning back in his chair, running a hand through his hair, which was already standing in different directions from earlier versions of this same frustration. He wasn’t looking forward to telling her, but she needed to know. She would ask him if there was a way around it and he would have to tell her that he couldn’t find one, that this book of prophecy was never wrong. He closed his eyes against the memories of when he’d discovered that she would die at the hands of the Master. He briefly wondered if she would throw books at him this time.
Giles opened his eyes, staring at his completely useless hands. He was failing her again. She would be angry, would blame him. His heart would ache, watching her suffer so. But, Buffy being Buffy, in the end, she would most likely find a way to change her fate. And in a week’s time, Giles would be back searching his books for the next mention of her demise.
And it was that thought that stopped him. He looked at the book in front of him, the pages now seeming too heavy to turn. There was no escaping it. For the rest of his life he would be the one to read what horror was in store for Buffy, for the world. He would have to see the pain and sadness in her eyes, would have to worry as she went to face it. He would feel relief as she returned to him, and then he would have to start all over again, combing through musty old books, looking for the next reason for her to hate him.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly exhausted, as the truth of it hit him. This was his life, his destiny, and it always would be. Buffy would find ways around prophecy, but he would always be fated to find the next portent of death and destruction. He alone would bear the burden, time after time, of seeing what grisly end awaited his Slayer. He alone was privileged to an endless list of dark warnings.
He reached out and closed the book, unable to look at it anymore. It wasn’t as if he had to; he knew its warning by heart. He knew it so well that it would follow him into his dreams, just as each one did, every night. He couldn’t even remember what it was like not to wake up screaming. And in the morning, he would sit back down again and start over. After all, it was his destiny. It was his calling. It was his doom.
He stood and turned his back on the scattered piles of traitorous books, his shoulders slumping. Weighed down by exhaustion and despair, he went up to bed.
The End