He Took a Scar For Me, So I Took Him For The Night

The quiet was the first sign of trouble. Sunnydale was never truly silent; the Hellmouth hummed beneath the surface of things, a low thrum of potential violence that kept Buffy’s senses perpetually tuned. But tonight, the hum was gone, replaced by a dead stillness that felt heavier than any scream. The air was thick and cold, carrying the scent of damp earth and something else… something like old, unshed tears.

Three people had vanished in as many weeks. No bodies, no blood, no signs of a struggle. They were just… gone. The police were calling it a string of bizarre disappearances, but Buffy knew better. This had the stink of the supernatural, just not a scent she recognized.

Her patrol led her to the apartment of the latest victim, a college student named Sarah. The door was sealed with police tape, but the lock was flimsy, and she slipped inside without a sound. The place was unnervingly normal. A half-finished bowl of cereal sat on the coffee table, the milk turned sour. The television screen showed only static. It was a snapshot of a life interrupted mid-frame.

The moment she crossed the threshold, it hit her. A wave of profound, suffocating sadness washed over her, so potent it felt like a physical blow. It wasn't her own emotion; it was an echo, a psychic stain left on the very air of the room. A deep, hollowing grief that settled in her chest and made it hard to breathe. Every corner of the small apartment seemed to weep with it.

She pushed through the feeling, her Slayer instincts screaming at her to get out, to run. This was wrong. Demons left traces of sulfur, of ozone, of rot. They didn't leave behind a palpable sense of utter despair. She moved deeper into the apartment, her boots silent on the cheap laminate flooring. The feeling intensified the closer she got to the bedroom.

Standing in the doorway, she had to grip the frame to keep from falling. The sorrow here was a physical entity, a crushing weight that pressed down on her soul. It was the hopeless misery of a thousand lonely nights, the sharp pang of every regret, the dull ache of a future that would never come. It seeped into her, dredging up her own losses, her own fears. For a terrifying second, she felt the impulse to just lie down on the floor and give up. On everything.

With a gasp, she shoved the feeling away, pushing back with the force of her own will. Her muscles trembled with the effort. This wasn't a simple monster. This thing didn't just kill its victims; it consumed their hope, their joy, their very will to exist, and left this devastating emptiness in its wake. This was new. And it was already stronger than anything she’d felt before.

Shaking off the last dregs of the apartment’s psychic gloom, Buffy hit the streets. The trail of sorrow was a tangible thing now, a cold current pulling her through the quiet town. It led her away from the residential blocks and toward the industrial district, the feeling growing stronger with every step, coiling in her gut like a sick premonition. It was thickest at the mouth of a narrow alley wedged between a boarded-up laundromat and a derelict warehouse. The air here was frigid and heavy with the creature's psychic spoor, a concentrated misery that clung to the damp brickwork.

She drew a stake from her jacket, the familiar weight of the wood a small comfort. Her senses were stretched taut, every shadow a potential threat, every skittering piece of trash a monster in waiting. She took a step into the oppressive darkness, her boots crunching on broken glass. The smell of decay and despair was overwhelming. This was the nest.

A blur of motion from the shadows behind her.

Instinct took over. Buffy spun, her stake arcing in a deadly slash aimed at whatever was lunging for her. Her arm was caught in an iron grip, the force of it jarring her to the bone. Her attacker was impossibly fast, unnaturally strong. She drove her heel back into a solid shin and used the moment of impact to twist free, putting her back to the wall as the dark figure recovered.

It didn't snarl or hiss. It just moved, a silent, efficient predator closing the distance in the blink of an eye. She met the charge head-on, a collision of muscle and will. She slammed her palm into its chest, but it was like hitting a wall of granite. A large hand clamped around her throat, not squeezing, but pinning her firmly against the cold, grimy bricks.

For a second, she saw only a silhouette against the faint glow of the streetlamp at the alley’s end. Then his face dipped into a sliver of light. The sculpted cheekbones, the dark, brooding eyes, the familiar lines of a face she knew better than her own.

"Angel?" The name was a choked whisper.

His grip didn't loosen. His eyes, fixed on hers, were hard and cold, the eyes of a hunter focused on his quarry. "Buffy." His voice was low, a gravelly sound that vibrated through the hand on her throat. "What are you doing here?"

"My job," she shot back, anger surging past the shock. She bucked her hips, trying to dislodge him, but he was an immovable weight, his body pressing her flush against the wall. The cold of him seeped through her leather jacket, a stark reminder of what he was. "A better question is, what are you doing here? Sunnydale isn't your territory anymore."

The friction between them was immediate and raw. Years of distance vanished, leaving only the sharp edges of their shared history and the primal tension of two predators in the same hunting ground. His gaze flickered down to her lips for a fraction of a second before returning to her eyes, a silent acknowledgment of the charge that still sparked between them.

"I'm hunting," he said, his voice tight. "I followed it from L.A. It killed two people there before it came here." His body remained pressed against hers, a solid, unyielding presence that was both a threat and something else entirely. The unspoken years, the arguments they never had, the love they couldn't speak of, all hung in the suffocating air of the alley between them.

His words hung in the frigid air, a claim on her city that set her teeth on edge. "It's my town, Angel. I handle what comes here." She struggled against his hold, the leather of her jacket groaning against the brick. His grip was unyielding, a cold manacle around her throat. The pressure wasn't enough to hurt, but it was enough to control.

"Not this time," he stated, his voice a low rumble that she felt in her own chest. "The victims in L.A. weren't just killed. They were… hollowed out. Left catatonic, without a single memory or emotion. Just empty shells."

The description sent a chill through her that had nothing to do with his vampiric temperature. It was exactly what she’d sensed in Sarah’s apartment, the terrifying endpoint of that crushing despair. "It leaves the grief behind," she said, her own voice dropping, the fight in her momentarily eclipsed by the grim reality of their shared enemy. "The feeling in the last victim's apartment was so strong it almost put me on my knees."

His dark eyes held hers, a flicker of understanding passing between them. "It feeds on it. Sorrow, loss, regret. It drains them dry and uses the energy to get stronger. The psychic field here is exponentially more powerful than it was a week ago." He finally released her, stepping back.

The sudden absence of his body was a shock. Cold air rushed into the space where he had been, and she could breathe again, though the air still felt thick with dread. She rubbed her throat, not because it was sore, but to erase the feeling of his fingers on her skin. They stood in the narrow alley, the chasm of their past stretching between them, wide and dark.

"So it's a psychic parasite," she said, putting a name to the formless horror. "A Grief-Harrow."

"A good name for it," he conceded. "And it's escalating. Another victim or two, and it might be strong enough to affect the whole town."

The unspoken truth landed between them with a heavy thud: neither of them could fight this alone. He didn't have her experience with the Hellmouth's particular brand of weirdness, and she'd never faced a creature that attacked the mind so directly. Her strength was useless against an enemy that could make her want to die.

She hated the conclusion they were both reaching. Hated the familiar, painful pull of needing him. "We need research," she said, her tone clipped and all business. It was a shield. "We need to know what we're fighting and how to kill it. We need books. Old, dusty, demon-y books."

His expression was unreadable in the dim light. "Giles's library." He didn't ask. It was the only place. The name of it settled over them, bringing with it a thousand ghosts—of late-night study sessions, of whispered confessions, of blood and tears and a love that had burned them both.

Buffy’s jaw tightened. "Yeah," she said, her voice hard. "The library."

She turned without another word and strode out of the alley, her boots crunching on the debris-strewn pavement. She didn't look back to see if he was following. She didn't have to. She could feel his presence behind her, a silent shadow falling into step a few paces back. A truce had been forged in mutual dread, and now they were walking back into the heart of their own history, a place more haunted than any cemetery.