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 5.02
Friday, June 14th, 2002


Brandon leant over to whisper as quietly as he could in Dawn's ear. "She's gonna let him win, right? I mean all that stuff... she bought it for him. She's hardly going to just give it all to someone else?"

Dawn's eyes flicked briefly from where her sister was doing stretches to warm up and Spike was stripping down to just his jeans to look at her boyfriend. "You wanna bet? If Spike thinks she's letting him win he won't touch that stuff with a twenty foot pole... and Buffy knows it. There's more chance that he'll throw it than she will."

"Huh?"

"Spike's... Spike. I mean, don't get me wrong, he's not exactly a fluffy puppy, but he won't go all out unless Buffy pushes him into it. He won't want to risk hurting her... even though he knows that she'll heal up quicker than he will... or, at least she used to heal up quicker than him, but then he started healing quicker and now I don't know... Anyway, he'll be looking to make one decisive move. Buffy'll pummel him into the ground if that's what she has to do to prove she's not taking it easy on him."

"So you think Buffy's going to win?"

"I'd say that depends more or less on one thing..."

"Okay, I'll bite. What's that?"

"That's easy," Tara responded from where she stood at Dawn's other side, her mouth curving into a mischievous, asymmetrical smile. "It's all down to how much Spike wants to win."

---

It seemed that word had somehow spread about the contest. At first there were just the extended Scoobies, or at least those who hadn't found other things to occupy their time. Bee and Wes were still in their respective beds, making up for their late night. Anya had already left for the magic shop. Xander was holding off as long as possible before heading for the high school construction site but would probably have to leave before the bout reached its climax. Oz had resisted the lure of the combat and headed straight for the library to pick up where he had left off on the previous day's research but the remaining occupants of the upper floor had all come to line the walls of the gym and watch the fight. Even Giles had chosen to leave instructions for the various research groups and come to watch, unable to resist the urge to coach his slayer as she fought.

Then, as Spike tilted his head first to one side and then the other until his neck cracked, James slipped into the room, followed a few seconds later by Lydia, Quentin and Roger Wyndam-Pryce. As the bout progressed potentials and watchers made their way quietly into the room in twos and threes and fours.

---

Spike raised an eyebrow as Buffy appeared to call a halt to her warm up. "Ready, pet?"

The slayer indicated the time on the clock that adorned the wall of the gym. "Still a couple of minutes to go," she teased as she closed the gap between them. She checked that the vampire's trim body shielded her from the view of any spectators, especially teenaged ones, her small hand reaching out to cup Spike's cheek and draw his lips down to hers. His arms slid around her waist, drawing her in so she was caught in a Spike-scented intoxication of spicy cologne, sex and cigarettes.

"Aren't you frightened I'll make an early start?" he asked as he tipped his head forward at the end of the kiss so that they rested forehead to forehead.

"Nope, 'cause I'd just disqualify you."

"An' who made you the referee?" Spike crooned in a voice smooth as satin. "Seems like you might not be exactly impartial."

Buffy's eyes moved to the clock behind his head once more before she stole another long-lasting kiss, pressing her whole body against his as she did so, even slipping one thigh between the vampire's and grinding her hipbone against him. "Like The Big Bad is going to play by the rules?" she asked as the clock's minute hand slipped the last ratchet to reach the vertical.

She tried to lodge her heel behind Spike's while he was distracted by her amorous endeavour, but whether he had been paying more attention to the subtle ticking of the clock than she was aware or whether he reacted to the switch in her mood as she stifled her own arousal and brought her slayer persona to the fore, he slipped deftly away from her.

"You're going to have to do better than that, love." The vampire moved easily backward toward the vaulting horse, beckoning his opponent forward, both hands raised, palms inwards, flexing his fingers in an age old gesture that meant 'Bring it on'.

Buffy's hand dipped into the back of her waistband... and came up empty.

"Looking for this?" The vampire pulled a heavy metal pin from behind his back, throwing it to the far end of the room, where it slid into a corner. "Shouldn't go getting all up close an' personal with the opposition."

It took no more than a fraction of a second for Buffy's eyes to scan the room, looking for an alternative weapon as she equally swiftly considered the various options. She had a feeling that Quentin would happily present her with a bill for any equipment she broke into kindling. Vaulting horses and balance beams, she suspected, were probably expensive.

Along one long wall were several large windows, interspersed with sets of double doors. All were currently shrouded by heavy drapes. Pull down, or simply open, enough curtains and the vampire would find his movements severely hampered. Part of her felt that this would be rather unfair, as in the normal run of things, the Gem of Amara aside, the slayer of slayers would not be hunting his prey in daylight. She hadn't allowed Spike the advantage of surprise and, with strength and speed already in her favour, it seemed unsportsmanlike to use a factor that would not be relevant had he chosen the time and place of their encounter.

On the opposite wall, much like in The Magic Box training room, was mounted an array of weapons. Many of them were of little more than nuisance value when fighting a vampire, throwing daggers and the like which could cause superficial wounds but were unlikely to incapacitate. Several swords and axes of various sizes and designs also graced the board, but should she misjudge the point when she needed to pull a beheading blow or should Spike step into the swing, Quentin might find it diverting but she would not. This left her with limited options, but it wasn't as if she was totally unprepared for this eventuality. It was Spike himself who had taught her that a slayer needs her weapon and Buffy had listened, though she wasn't averse to breaking necks when she ran out of other alternatives. One of the quivers on the board contained not wooden crossbow bolts, but metal ones. Like the pin the vampire had discarded, the bolts had been daubed with fluorescent paint to denote that for the purposes of their fight an injury from any of these items was to be regarded as fatal if it pierced the vampire's heart.

Buffy sprinted for the board, taking a slightly curved path to try to stay out of reach of the damnably attractive demon she had to fight, until she could reach her chosen weapon. Instead of coming towards her to cut her off as she had expected, Spike turned and, with no more than a couple of steps run up, leapt on top of the vaulting horse. The higher position meant he would be able to launch himself into a flying tackle that could take her down as soon as she tried to pass between the vaulting horse and the wall. However, by the time Buffy realised this, her forward momentum didn't really allow her to stop or change course. Instead, she threw herself into a pair of tightly curled forward rolls, one following straight after the other. She uncoiled, right next to the quiver of arrows she wanted, but it was as if a metal bar slammed into her stomach. As she fell backwards, she saw Spike spin to a stop, his right leg lowering from the horizontal to its normal position. 'Okay, no metal bar then, just firm, strong vampire leg muscle,' she thought before giving herself a mental shake to clear the 'bad' Spike images from her brain.

Flipping to her feet, she found that Spike had reached the quiver of crossbow bolts before her, launching them into the same corner of the room as the metal pin.

"How..." Buffy couldn't prevent the puzzlement she felt from showing even as she launched into a series of kicks and punches, all successfully evaded or blocked by her opponent.

The vampire grinned. "Smell that paint a mile off, love," he replied, launching his own counter offensive, which seemed to Buffy not so much designed to cause injury as to wear her down.

'Okay, two can play at that game,' Buffy decided.

---

The bout had taken on more of the appearance of a sparring match. At times, each fighter seemed to gain the ascendancy, but things in general were running more in Spike's favour than his fiancée's. It seemed as if Buffy was just a fraction slower in anticipating the vampire's moves whereas Spike seemed to know what Buffy was going to do almost as soon as she did.

"You're dropping your shoulder!" Giles coached from the sidelines.

Aside from an almost involuntary eye roll, Buffy ignored the watcher. 'You try keeping your shoulder up when you've been going toe-to-toe for an hour with an opponent that doesn't even get out of breath.'

As her fist struck out she felt it clasped in an iron grip. Spike pulled her off-balance and before she could right herself, he had stepped behind her, without releasing her hand, so that her arm was wrapped uselessly around her body. The familiar crunch of shifting bone sounded by her ear and two sharp canines barely grazed her neck. The fight was over.

---

"Okay, give!" Dawn insisted as she slid her tray onto the table and sat down opposite the blond vamp. Brandon slipped into the seat beside her.

"Wha', Nibblet?" Spike swung a leather-clad arm and the mug at the end of it toward the teen. "Don't think you really want to swap breakfasts."

"Gross! No-o-o! I mean tell me what was going on in that fight. Last time I saw you two sparring, it was a lot more even than that... Unless somebody wasn't really trying?" She gave her sister, who was just joining them, a pointed look.

"Heyyyy! I was trying!"

"Yeah, Bit, I'd have known if she wasn't really going for it."

Contrary to her previous protestations, Buffy seemed to take exception to Spike's confident assertion. "How do you know? Maybe I just didn't want to take all the stuff back?"

Spike smirked like a tomcat who not only got the cream but the tuna and unlimited access to a female in heat as well. "I know, love, because if you hadn't been thinking of it as a proper fight - at least after I took away your toy stake, you were - you wouldn't have been broadcasting all your moves to me as you thought them."

Buffy's jaw dropped a fraction of an inch.

"Remember what I told you about blocking you so that you didn't pick up on my fights when you weren't talking. All that practice came in handy."

"You cheater!" Buffy sputtered.

"What did you expect, pet? I am evil." With a grin, the blond tugged slightly at the cuff of his new leather duster so the sleeve sat just as he wanted it to. "It's all part of my sinister charm."

Buffy found herself unable to argue.