Note: Thanks to my beta t_geyer for her unending patience, perseverance and support.

SECTION 5 - LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

He raised his son in the English way
And he taught him respect, he taught him how to pray
He sent him off to boarding school
Where he learned how to live by someone else's rules...

... It must be something much deeper than fear or pain
Another child learns the pattern, he won't break the chain

Fear of God and the feel of the rod will raise a good boy
The fear of God and the feel of the rod will raise a good boy
The fear of God and the feel of the rod will raise the next boy


(Rick Springfield Album - Living in Oz)




Chapter 5.25
Sunday, June 16th, 2002


"You know there's absolutely no good reason for me not to do that?" Faith grinned as she backed Spike's bike into its normal parking spot and dismounted.

Wes shifted the bringer slightly on his shoulder. "It's probably easier if it's someone slightly taller carrying him. Besides, I don't think you're exactly getting off easy carrying those saddlebags."

Faith shrugged at that. There were two cases worth of beer split between the oversized panniers. She set a pair of bags over each shoulder, ignoring the dull clanking of the cans inside. Lifting one of the flaps, she pulled out one of the cans and, holding it well away from her body, she flipped the tab, letting it spray freely for a couple of seconds. She then covered the opening with her mouth to catch the froth before it spilled over the edge. "Suits me," she answered, when she could sip the rest of the beer normally.

Faith stayed with the watcher as he carried the bringer downstairs and helped chain their captive down, using the manacles that had been set into the floor the previous night. Once she was happy that the harbinger had been securely fastened, she tilted his head to examine the violet bruise that was blooming along one side of his jaw, having been inflicted by the butt end of the shotgun that was once more locked away in Wes's gun safe. "That is one handy weapon to have around..." she told her companion,"...but, sometimes, you just gotta go with the classics." Almost as if she planned to use the knife she had purloined as a cutthroat razor, she slid its sharpened edge over the bruise until it caught under the edge of the duct tape that covered the prisoner's mouth.

The blade pried up the first few millimetres and Faith grabbed it, yanking the strip free in one swift exfoliating jerk. The bringer's mouth opened in a croaky scream as he came back to consciousness. The slayer got an up-close view of where The First had had its servant's tongue ripped from his mouth. She reached behind her and took a deep draught from her half-finished beer before she caught the watcher's eye. "Looks like The First goes for the strong silent type," she drawled.

 

---

 

Faith pushed open the door to the gym, expecting to find it empty. Instead, there were slow, rhythmic, barely audible clinks, coming from the corner of the moonlit room where several weight machines had been set up. She knew that neither Spike nor Buffy would be working out, and the potentials were only allowed to use the gym under supervision, which limited them to the earlier part of the evening. Intrigued, she kept to the shadows, prowling forward until she had a good view of the figure seated on one of the weight benches.

Silvery light limned the man's bare torso, outlining every muscular line from broad shoulders to where his tautly ridged abdomen disappeared into a pair of dark sweat pants. His forearms pressed against vertical pads, pushing with a smooth motion until the pads met in front of the centre of his body and then returned to their original position almost in line with his shoulders. The motion was so controlled that she couldn't resist the temptation to check whether he was merely working with a minimal weight, but, no, the weights he was pulling, while nowhere near her own limits and to judge by the outline of his pale biceps well within his own capabilities, were no picnic.

Leaning against the wall, she ran her tongue over full strawberry lips and watched the show until he finished his set on the machine and reached for a towel to wipe it down. His eyes found hers in the darkness and his voice had that slight lilt she couldn't place as he spoke. "I thought watcher was my job description, not yours."

Faith smiled her best come-on smile and walked forward into the moonlight. "You can't blame a girl for looking, when there's goods like that on show." Her gaze roved over his upper body as she stepped close enough to trace a nail over a blue vein under the milk pale skin of his upper arm.

"Are you always this forward with men you don't know?" he asked, his accent warming the fire in her stomach even further.

"I know you."

"Well enough to know my second name?"

"Ur-Q-Heart," she drawled, her grin widening at the surprise that flitted through his eyes. "Just like the guy in the film with the rabbit."

"Close enough," James agreed. His eyes narrowed slightly as Faith shifted infinitesimally closer, Dawn's leather jacket almost brushing the sweat-slick planes of his upper abdomen. His hand reached up to smooth a stray strand of hair from Faith's forehead. "I've had my share of one night stands," he told her in a gentle half-whisper.

The smile faded from Faith's glossy lips and the teasing glint died from her eyes. She tossed her hair defiantly and took a step backwards before a large hand gripped her upper arm. He knew better than to use force on a slayer but the touch was enough to make her pause.

In that brief hesitation, his mouth covered hers, their lips brushing together with glorious delicacy before he lifted his head. "I'm not saying no, ye understand, I'm just telling ye I'm not about tae walk away in the mornin'." The accent was stronger in that whisper than Faith had heard it before, and she smothered it with her lips on his own before it could disarm her completely. When it was over, there would be the recriminations and the blame, same as ever. He might not walk away. That wouldn't stop her from doing it, but for now she had three years of lost time to make up for. As the kiss deepened, technique giving way to mutual need, tomorrow seemed a far distant shore.

 

---

 

Tara looked up expectantly when Wes walked into the attic room. The watcher gave her a grim but reassuring smile before he made his way to Marie's side, letting the saddlebags slide to the floor. "We interrupted them before they could get to the main part of the entertainment. The girl had enough sense to make a run for it while we finished them off and got hold of our friend downstairs."

"You brought back a bringer?" Marie asked in a surprised tone.

"That was sort of the plan," Wes affirmed with a self-deprecating smile. "What wasn't part of the plan is that we're going to need some heavy duty telepathy to go with that truth spell."

"Huh?" Bee asked.

"He hasn't got a tongue... Or to be more precise, he had one but it's been removed."

"What are you going to do?" Tara asked concernedly. "I mean, the longer we hold him here the more chance that they'll come try to get him back."

Wes grinned, squeezing into the armchair alongside Marie and then drawing her onto his lap. "Personally? I plan to have a few well-earned beers and watch our Latin American cousins kick some Yankee butt.

Giles and Lydia, on the other hand, have roped a few of the watchers into looking for some sort of spell that might do the trick."

"Are they in the library?" Bee asked.

Wes and Tara's eyes flicked to the demi-angel in an appraising manner. "Are you planning on helping out?" Tara asked. "I mean, there's a spell Willow used to use where she could talk to someone inside their head and then they just had to think the answer back. If you want..."

"That spell's a little darker than you're likely to be comfortable with. I wouldn't recommend it. Anything where you actually go into another person's mind is always suspect.

Actually, I was just going to find out if any of the watchers speak Turkish, in which case I can loan them the book in my room. Otherwise we need to get a hold of a copy of Grossman's Compilation of Mediterranean Folk Magic. It has an English version but the translations in it aren't always entirely trustworthy."

 

---

 

Lily bustled down the narrow attic corridor, clutching an armful of bedding, Spike's muttered complaints following on behind her. "We could have just lain down on the floor," he griped. "We're not made of bloody porcelain, you know."

Lily tutted. "I know, your mother, she teach you no to speak backward like stubborn mule."

"Bottom and Mr Ed excepted, our four-legged friends aren't much for conversation," the blond retorted.

Lily began to lay out her load of pillows and quilts in front of the sofa as he spoke. When she finished, she turned and fixed the vampire with a steely glare. "You lie on the floor, then, Mr Tough Vampire, but Buffy she not too stupid to be comfortable, so Mr Tough Guy can lie alone and see who care."

"Well, maybe I should just keep her company, like," the vampire back-pedalled, knowing he had pushed his luck just a little too far.

"Where's Wes?" Buffy interrupted as she lowered herself to the makeshift bed, leaving room for Spike to lie behind her. "Spike said he heard him get back before."

"He brought back the beer and he said to order the pizza when you got up. He says he'll be back in time for kick off."

"Yeah, but where is he?" Buffy asked.

"He had a sudden urge to introduce Bee to his mother," Marie answered cryptically.

"And Faith? She came back with him?" Buffy sounded slightly concerned that the pair might have split up before the patrol finished.

"She's back," the Latina confirmed. "Wes said she was going to work off her excess energy in the gym."

---

 

Faith's back was slick with sweat, making the plastic covering of the exercise mat stick to her back as she slowly came back to her senses. She let her knees fall open, but used the fingers fisted in James' hair to pull him back up her body, his lips brushing kisses on her abdomen and between her breasts as she did so. He crawled over her body, supporting himself on his left elbow, so that his other large callused hand was free to cradle a swollen breast, his thumb brushing the sensitised flesh of her nipple and setting off aftershocks in the pit of her stomach. Her grip brought his mouth back to hers, her slow caresses being matched and passion sparked anew by the fervour of James' response.

His kisses tasted of the salt of both their spendings, evidence of their earlier activities and Faith was surprised to find that the dick that pressed against her thigh was stiff again. Its tip brushed against her as James rocked his pelvis, pressing on her clit and then sliding on her slick lips until he teased the muscles at the entrance to her core, muscles that alternately tensed and then eased open to allow him entrance. Up and down he moved, and Faith arched under him, the plastic peeling from her waist and then her lower back and then her shoulderblades as she tried to meet his movements. His left forearm slipped under Faith's shoulder and his fingers tangled in her hair, so that he could look at her face in the moonlight as he pulled his mouth away and thrust forward with his hips, their relative heights making it difficult to maintain the kiss as he plunged deep inside her.

Faith's eyes widened with pain and surprise, still tight after three years of celibacy. Even as his cock penetrated her for the second time that night, relaxed as she was, she could feel every millimetre of his girth and length pressing against her internal walls. The invasion was an exquisite blend of pleasure and pain as they ground together, his heavily muscled thighs pushing her legs wide as he wiggled his hips, getting even deeper if that were possible. Then, just as she was getting used to the feel of him inside her again, he rolled them both over.

Faith's knees still trembled in the aftermath of her last climax and as he slowly began to move under her, his hands grasped her hips, guiding her gently up and down until she could maintain the rhythm on her own, pain receding as endorphins kicked in again. As she moved over him, his hands were free to skim her flesh, his feather-touch raising goosebumps on her arms, her breasts and her buttocks, until he sensed her tightening around him. He took her hands in his own, guiding them to her breasts, silently urging her to fondle them. His gaze seemed transfixed for a few seconds as she held the well-proportioned mounds in her delicate hands, massaging them with a cyclic motion that alternately pushed them together and let them slide apart. His hands glided along her inner thighs, his thumbs sliding deep between her legs to where she enveloped him in her warmth. A firm touch on either side spread her lips flat until his digits reached the telltale knot of flesh and pressed even more firmly, massaging her with each in turn.

The slayer caught her lip between her teeth, willing herself not to come first this time. It was understandable after waiting so long that she'd been a little over eager the first time, but not again. She was the one in control. She was... Damn, she was coming again.