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Ari patrols most nights. He frequently whistles as he does so. He's on friendly terms with many of the people of the town, though some of them think he's a dangerous weirdo. (They're not wrong, but it's not very polite to say it outright like that.)
Vampires still come to Sunnydale. Because it's Sunnydale, and because vampires are idiots. The ones who live here already, though, have picked up a habit of either visiting the kosher butcher's or the bite shop, or moving to LA. Or having their heads ripped off by an excessively cheerful blonde half-Kal'shekk witch.
Speaking of the kosher butcher's, he pops his head into that alleyway. Maybe he'll see Mr. Ray, that nice vampire chap who comes by for some fresh cow's blood every Thursday. (Ari acts cheerfully oblivious to the fact that every vampire he knows is blind terrified of him. Some of them are alright when he keeps them from eating people; being unrepentantly amoral doesn't have to mean you're not a nice person.)
"I believe, and have no reason to doubt, that there is absolutely no feeling better than knowing you've made someone else happy. So I do it as much as I possibly can. And you deserve so many nice things that I couldn't give you enough in a million years."
Mark hugs him tightly.
"You are agonizingly nice. It's lovely. Continue. I will probably cry on you a lot."
"O Mark, that pretty vampire who is so... I mentioned I'm bad at sonnets, right? I'm bad at sonnets. Good at punching, good at kissing, good at related activities, sonnets not so much."
"I'm good at murder and impersonating my brother. And having emotional breakdowns, apparently. I want better talents."
"You're good at being cute. You're good at keeping your soul. You're good at climbing fences and finding a place to live and at laughing at stuff that's only funny to you, which really belongs under "being cute," but I'm giving it to you separately because it deserves another point. I don't know, Mark, I'm seeing a lot of checks in the plus column."
"I never denied that." He kisses Mark's head again, because he's cute and that merits head-kisses.
Hug.
"I'm not so sure that I kept my soul," he says. "I might just not have been using it for anything in the first place. I'm not sure what a sense of morality is or how I would know if I had one."
"...well, if you didn't keep your soul, you're good at being fine without a soul. Souls are overrated, in my opinion; I've known some perfectly nice demons without any."
Experimentally, he wipes his eyes. Maybe he is done crying for now! Wouldn't that be exciting!
"So, the bottomless pit of terror thing. Is it the kind of thing that could be overcome with exposure? Because I can do that. Or anything else that might help, really, I can move mountains etcetera for the sake of making you feel better. Though if you want me to move an actual mountain it'll take a while and I'm not sure how it'd help, so I might request an explanation."
"Exposure does seem to make it more... bearable. Sort of. And even if the practical benefits are questionable, I still like kissing you."
"So, was that an invitation, or just a statement of fact? I'd rather not presume."
Not that kind of feeling. (He'll ask about that in a bit.)
The bottomless pit is getting downright delightful. Mark is so pleased.
It sounded kind of like that might happen! Ari would be very pleased with this if he knew what was going on inside Mark's head. And if he wasn't busy being pleased with other things. As it is, he is very pleased with those other things anyway.
There are many pleasing things going on! And many ways to be pleased about them.
Unlike Mark, Ari still needs to breathe (once every ten minutes, but still). While doing so, he decides to ask "How do you feel about moving on to slightly more advanced bottomless pits?"
Some part of Ari feels that the word "recklessly" should not be used in response to a sentence involving the phrase "bottomless pit". The rest of him is too busy feeling to feel the same.
Are they good feelings? Because Ari is, in fact, good at feeling. It's a skill he's developed.