If

"If. I'm just saying, if." Xander wouldn't look at him, face against Spike's chest. Fingers around that picture he'd found, one Spike should have burned, a long time ago.

Spike sighed. "No ifs. Stopped believing in if before you were born, brat. There's just us. You, me, here, now." Circles along the soft skin of Xander's neck-- slow, soothing, trying, like any completely insane vampire, to *calm* the throbbing pulse beneath his fingers.

"If she came back, though."

"She doesn't want me, Xander."

"But what if--"

"No."

"But--"

"No."

"No ifs allowed, huh?"

"No, just... no."

"...oh."

the end