Xander closed the door to his apartment with a weary sigh. Shrugging off his jacket, he hung it up on the hook near the door and locked the door. Patrol had been rough tonight. Apparently Spike had gone missing, and Buffy was afraid that maybe he was plotting some new evil scheme, so she'd called out the entire Scooby Gang for a long patrol, but no one had been able to find hide nor hair of the vampire in question. The crypt that Spike had been living in was gathering dust and most of his more valuable belongings were gone, but whether they'd been moved or whether the empty crypt had been raided by someone was hard to tell.
"Maybe he moved on." Willow had suggested to Buffy, "Sunnydale isn't that much fun for a chipped vampire, so maybe now that he knows he can fight demons, he decided to go somewhere else. Or..." She trailed off, but everyone knew what she was going to say. Xander and Willow had caught Spike trying to dust himself only a few days ago, so it wasn't impossible that he'd tried again and managed to succeed.
Buffy beat up Willie even more than usual, but the bartender continued to swear that he had no idea where Spike was, so the gang was at a loss of what to do next. Xander sighed, kicking off his shoes and padding to the bedroom.
"Hey honey, I'm home." Xander murmured, crawling into bed without turning a light on. Spike didn't respond, so Xander let his fingertips trail down Spike's arm. That elicited a shiver, and Xander grinned at the obvious sign of restrained lust. "Miss me, baby?" he whispered into Spike's ear, rolling over to straddle the vampire. When he'd seen Spike trying to impale himself on a stake rather than admit to the passionate feelings that were burning inside him for Xander, Xander knew it was time to go to the next level of their relationship. He had to protect Spike, even it it was Spike who he was protecting him from. This was the way it had to be to keep Spike safe.
But apparently Spike hadn't accepted this logical reasoning, because there were traces of blood from where he'd been struggling against the cloth and wire gag all day. Vampiric healing had already closed the wounds against the corners of his lips, but the paths that the blood had dripped across Spike's cheeks were dried and dark against his pale skin. "I wish you wouldn't struggle so much against what you know is meant to be." Xander said quietly, lowering his head to lick the dried blood away. Spike trembled and the shackles connecting his wrists to the head board made a soft tinkeling sound. Xander chuckled. "You know you want it. You don't have to fight it anymore." He gently untied the gag and took it off, setting it aside. He was tempted to remove the blindfold too, but he left it on. He'd learned from what he'd read that the blindfold was an essential part of the process - by cutting off sight, it helped the person to be able to concentrate on themselves and sort though their feelings, and then accept and cope with the results of their feeling sorting. As much as he wanted to gaze into Spike's breathtakingly beautiful blue eyes, he didn't want his own selfishness to impede the process. The sooner Spike processed and accepted his feelings, the sooner they'd be the happy couple Xander knew they were destined to be.
"Hate you." Spike muttered, voice broken. Xander knew he was crying, would be able to hear the tears in his voice even if he didn't see them soaking into the blindfold.
"You love me, darling." Xander replied, kissing a trail from Spike's lips to the curve where neck meets shoulder. "You just can't admit it yet. But don't worry..." He bit down sharply, causing Spike to cry out. "I'll help you."