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At first, Sam doesn't think all that much of it. That in itself is probably ill-advised when he knows he's a hell of a lot stronger than he was the day before, but he learns quickly that shit is weird all over the city. At least is isn't climbing up buildings or accidentally starting fires or anything of the sort. This is manageable, and it isn't as if he's about to go wasting his time asking around, trying to figure out what these newfound abilities mean or where they might have come from. He'll wait it out, like the weekend on the island when he was a kid again, and all the other weird shit that happened there.

It's when he goes to sleep that everything changes. The dreams are — unsettling, to say the least, dark and gruesome, featuring women he knows he's never seen before, except he's pretty sure he is them, which is even weirder. It's not as if he expects everything that happens in his head while he sleeps to make total sense, but this is different. Only, then, there is someone familiar, and even when he wakes up with his heart racing, he knows who might have some answers for him.

He doesn't bother letting Buffy know he's stopping by before he heads over, just hoping she's home when he stands at her door and knocks, arms folding over his chest as he waits. When the door does open, he grins crookedly at her, offering in lieu of a greeting, "So, uh, I had this dream about you last night."

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Usually, Buffy would not be home this late into the morning. She would be at work already. But yesterday, after dropping her third box marked fragile, she was sent home from the warehouse with instructions to return only when she felt like herself again. She didn't argue; after waking up powerless, she had been forced to postpone the obligatory freakout in favor of making it to work on time. Getting the day off after all was a godsend. She returned home and promptly hit the books, searching through volumes of recorded mystical phenomena for anything resembling the sudden wave of superpower musical chairs that seemed to have hit the city of Darrow.

In the end, all of that reading must have put her to sleep. When a knock at the the door startles her awake, she finds herself slumped over the dining room table using an open book for a pillow. There's even some drool on the page. The tabletop is barely visible under her scattered notes and dusty tomes stacked high. Her collection of supernatural literature is nothing to brag about, but for a Slayer without a Watcher, she thinks she's done well enough. She used what Tara left behind as a starting point and has only expanded her little library since. Having somewhere to look, something to keep her mind busy, it's the only reason she's handling this bout of sudden powerlessness at all.

This isn't the first time that Buffy has had to make do without her powers. She lived without them for years on the island. Not too long ago, she was feeling almost nostalgic for that place, lamenting the normal(ish) life she got to lead there. But things were different then. People didn't need defending there, not like they do here. She could handle not being the Slayer as long as there was no work for a Slayer to do. That's not the case here in Darrow.

Waking up is a disappointment. She had hoped that it might have been a terrible dream, or an off day, some kind of very temporary fluke. No such luck. She pushes herself up out of the chair and shuffles through the house, squinting through the peephole before she opens the door. If the sight of Sam Flynn on her doorstep is unexpected, she isn't sure what can be said for his opening line.

"Um... okay," she says, scratching her head. "Points for originality, I guess?"

It's all Sam can do not to laugh. None of this is really funny at all, and the dreams he had last night certainly weren't, more unsettling than anything else, but then, that might be all the more reason to find levity where he can. Of course, he could probably have started this off somewhat better, but it's not like what he told her isn't true. He did have a dream that prominently featured her. It just wasn't in any kind of pleasant context, even if he is relieved to at least have some kind of direction. If she really can give him any answers, it'll be worth whatever he had to see while asleep. Better than just being clueless and left alone with all of this, anyway.

"I don't know how original it really was," he tells her, brow raised. "But, uh... you were there, and also a few women I'd never seen before, and it got... pretty gruesome. You know anything about that?"

For a long moment, Buffy stares at Sam, her expression caught somewhere between wary and skeptical. It sounds familiar, she can't deny that. But while she may not hide the fact that she is the Slayer anymore, at least not from her friends, she also doesn't make a habit of sharing all the dark and gory details either. He should have no way of knowing about the dreams, or the psychic connection shared among vampire slayers.

It could be something else. The dreamscape is a confusing place; she's ventured through it several times and she's still no closer to understanding how it works. It wouldn't be unheard of, for Sam to have wandered into her unconscious mind. But a feat like that, as far as she knows, doesn't just happen by accident. It requires heavy magic and mystical know-how to navigate another plane of reality. Unless Sam has been dabbling in the witchy arts since they last saw each other, it doesn't seem likely.

"It depends," she says slowly, her eyebrows knitting together. "Is that the only weird thing that's happened?"

"Not exactly," Sam says, his own words slow, measured, in turn. Not even close, in fact, but it's the dreams he's most stuck on. Weird shit is happening all over the city, people having powers they aren't supposed to. He's hardly alone in that, and if he's right, will probably just have to wait it out. But with the unsettling images he saw last night, he does want to know what the hell is going on, and it just makes sense that it would all be connected. The way Buffy is looking at him seems to all but confirm that he's right in asking her for answers. "I'm a lot stronger than I was a couple days ago, too. I'd demonstrate, but I don't want to break your door."