Disclaimer: I don’t own Angel, Drusilla or Spike and I never have.
I wish I could own Angel, at least have a time share thing, but what can you do? Don’t sue me, all I have to my name are a few CDs, my brain (which isn’t much), a half empty Pepsi, a cat, and $3.74.
Angel and Drusilla walked together, followed by a wheelchair bound Spike, through the parking lot on their way to see a realtor about a new home. Fortunately for the three of them the realty office remained open past sundown, since none were ready to compromise their health by going out into the sun just to get a new home.
"Stupidity is not a handicap, they should park elsewhere." Spike grumbled softly. He was already in a bad mood to begin with and since someone had taken the only handicap parking space he was in an even worse mood. Going house shopping, especially with Angel, was not high on his list of fun things to do in the evening. Angel was not on his list of favorite people either at this point.
"I have no control over the moronic in the world, Spike." Angel responded with a smirk as he adjusted his leather jacket. Then he casually putting his arm around Drusilla’s waist in an attempt to aggravate Spike further. It worked.
"Why are we here? Why can’t we just find another abandoned warehouse like the one the Watcher burned to the ground?" Spike inquired, Angel merely groaned in annoyance.
"You just answered your own question, Spike. They knew where we lived, they could have attacked us at any time. A house is a lot less obvious and with a house there’s a little thing called security you can get, you know, to guard against the, as you put it, ‘brassed off slayer’ and keep a repeat performance of the warehouse from
happening. We’re just lucky that real estate is so inexpensive on the Hellmouth, we should be able to get a house that can lodge the entire coven for pretty cheap." Angel answered calmly as they made their way to the building. Spike looked up at the sign above the door to the building. "Sunnydale Reality" was written in large red lettering. Angel opened the door, letting Drusilla inside and then with a grin held the door open for Spike. Spike briefly considered rolling over Angel’s toes but thought better of it and just went inside.
They made their way to an office after telling the secretary they had an appointment. Inside the office they found a woman in her middle forties with long brown hair and brown eyes sitting at the desk doing paperwork. It would have been a nice office except the ugly pink paint that covered the walls making the office appear like a room from the Barbie Dream House. Angel and Spike exchange glances briefly. Angel then cleared his throat softly to let her know of their presence. She looked up and smiled at them hospitably.
"Hello, I’m Mary, I’ll be helping you tonight." she said, standing up and extending her hand to Angel. Angel smiled cordially and shook her hand. "You’re hand is cold. Are you sick?" she inquired, Angel
was barely able to repress a laugh.
"Yes, I am sick. But not nearly as sick as Spike here is."
"Very funny, Angel." Spike muttered under his breath.
"This is Drusilla and Spike." Angel said, motioning to the other two vampires.
"Nice to meet you. So, is this your first house or are you deciding
to move into a bigger house?" Mary asked politely.
"Well, our last abode was unfortunately burned down to the foundation so we’re homeless at the moment."
"And whose fault is that, Angel!?" Spike asked sharply. Angel turned to him and glared coldly, if looks could kill Spike would have been dust.
"The watcher’s!" Angel snapped back. "You know, I’m paying for a new house, what the hell else do you want from me?"
"The what? What’s a watcher?" Mary asked, she appeared to be quite confused at this point. Angel turned back to her and put on a polite smile once again, the last thing he needed was her to be suspicious that something was going on. Angel was the cryptic one, as it were, and Spike’s blatant remarks toward their nature were not something he wanted to deal with and explain.
"Never mind. It’s a really long story. The point is we need a new place to live. I believe you’ve seen our requirements." Angel
answered, giving Spike one final glare.
"Well, I have a few places I could show you that might fit your
needs, but there aren’t many houses in Sunnydale with the type of space you’re in need of. Can I ask why you need so much room?"
"We have a lot of friends." Angel replied with a knowing smile.
"All right, well, would you like to go see them now?" Angel and Spike both nodded, Drusilla was too busy staring at a painting on the wall, a rather confusing and ugly piece of modern art, and appeared either disinterested or oblivious to what was going on. "Shall we take your car?"
"Whatever." Spike replied with a sigh.
With that they left the office and went to Spike’s car. Angel got in the driver’s seat, Mary in the passenger’s seat, and Spike and Drusilla in the back. Angel put the key in the ignition and started the car. As the car started so did the CD player. "Bloodletting (the vampire song)" by Concrete Blonde began playing loudly from the speakers. Angel quickly turned it down.
"So," Mary began in order to make pleasant conversation, "Are you all friends or are you family?"
"We’re family, in a manner of speaking." Angel responded while a smile played on his lips. "So, where’s the first house you want us to look at?"
"Just down this street." They arrived at the first house. It was a large two story home in a nice suburban middle-class neighborhood. It was a white house with a white picket fence around it, an oak tree in the yard and a lot of windows.
"Um, no." Spike said automatically as they pulled up. Without even getting out of the car he knew the house was not for him, or the rest of the vampire coven for that matter.
"Do I get to be Walley or the Beav?" Angel asked with a grin.
"Do I look to be the type to live in a house with a bloody white picket fence around it?" Spike asked cynically. "And if the slayer were to ever find us, look around, readily available weapons. Why don’t we just sign our death certificates now and save her the trouble?" This got another rather confused look from Mary. By this point she was seriously doubting their collective sanity.
"My Angel--I’m hungry." Drusilla cooed softly from the backseat of the car.
"I told you to eat before you left. We’ll go eat after we’re done. Just sit tight, Dru." Angel answered, glancing at the house for a final time.
"I see you aren’t the type for suburban living. I think I have something a little more tough that you might like." Well, she reasoned to herself, who was she to judge their sanity? If they
could pay for the house, who was she to play psychologist? With that they were off again. This time they drove past the Bronze, to the bad part of town. They pull up to a house, this one does not appear to be the cozy home of the suburban abode. It was an old brick house that looked to have come from a ghetto somewhere. There was spray paint on the sides and a few broken windows. "It’s a fixer-upper." Mary quipped quietly as they got out of the car, Drusilla helping Spike into his wheelchair.
"That’s an understatement." Angel responded as he made his way up the stairs to the door. "Can we go in?"
"Of course." That was the invitation they needed. Angel opened the door slowly and walked inside, followed by Mary and finally Drusilla and Spike, once Drusilla had managed to get Spike and his wheelchair up the small stairway.
They stood in the living room. It was large and rather run down, like the rest of the house. "Well, it’s big enough." Spike said as he looked around. Angel walked around the large empty living room
slowly. Suddenly there was a loud bang.
"What the hell was that?!" Angel asked quickly, turning around rapidly to see where it had come from.
"That sounded like a bloody gun!" Spike replied as he looked around for the source as well. "Normally guns mean violence and violence means death and that means free food, but I don’t know if I want it by my house." Angel sighed and shook his head once.
"Could you excuse us for a minute?" Angel asked Mary with a charming lopsided smile that he used when he wanted something or wanted to get his way. It had worked for almost two and a half centuries, and it worked once again. She nodded and walked out of the room. "Spike, shut up! Could you possibly make it any more obvious to her that we’re vampires? Why don’t you just say, ‘hey guess what? We’re vampires!’"
"Oh, come on, Angel, everyone in this town is dense. I could bite her and she wouldn’t believe I’m a vampire." Spike said with the roll of his eyes in Angel’s general direction. Angel mumbled something incoherent but by the expression on his face it was nothing very nice.
"Fine, just be a little more careful." Angel answered shortly, putting his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, to hid his clenched fists from Spike’s eyes.
"What do you think of the place?" Spike asked to change the subject.
"I may be immortal but I don’t like getting shot at. Also, I don’t want to have to play Bob Vila and fix the place up. Home repairs really aren’t my cup of blood, if you get my drift. Besides, this is a rat trap anyway, worse than the warehouse was. If I wanted to live with rats I’d take up permanent residence in the sewer system."
"I like rats--with their tails and furry legs--" Drusilla mused, Angel and Spike exchanged quick glances.
"I’ll get you a pet rat. That way you get to have a rat and we don’t have to live with them." Angel replied, this got a smile from Drusilla. Mary entered the room again, just as Angel stepped on a cockroach that he saw scurrying across the floor.
"Suburbia is looking better and better." Spike stated, a disgusted
look crossed his face as he watched Angel attempt to get the roach off his boot.
"Let’s get out of here before we get shot or the roof collapses, no prizes for guessing which happens first." With that they left the house and returned to the car after observing a drug deal across the street.
"Well, if I was a crack
smoker then this would be a rather convenient house to live in." Spike said sarcastically upon watching the drug deal. After they got in the car, Angel adjusted his mirror and glanced at Mary.
"So, where next, fearless leader?" Spike grumbled from the back.
"Don’t make me turn the car around." Angel snapped back.
"I do wish you would." Spike cracked softly.
"Well," Mary said, interrupting the escalating argument, "the next house is on Oak Street." Angel’s eyes lit up with recognition of the name and he shook his head slightly.
"Problem, Angel?" Spike asked, cocking his eyebrow sarcastically.
Angel repressed a natural desire to either smack the hell out of Spike or growl at him. Rather, he chose to smile politely in Spike’s direction. "No, if you want to live half a block away from Buffy, then no, I see no problem. No problem at all. Hey, maybe we can invite her, Giles and all her little friends over for a housewarming party and a barbecue! We can serve drinks, hot dogs and my head and yours on platters! Or how about a nice juicy stake? That’d be perfect!" Angel replied with a sardonic grin.
"You know, you don’t need to be so pissy, Angel." Spike answered, crossing his arms over his chest slowly.
"I won’t dignify that with a response, Spike. Next house." Angel said, turning to Mary.
"Well, it’s on Washington Avenue." she said quietly.
"Good, yes, great! Let’s go." Angel peeled out of the driveway like the proverbial bat out of hell.
By the time they arrived at the third house morale was falling apart. Drusilla was whining about being hungry, Spike, whose morale wasn’t all that high to begin with kept repeating his thought that they should just find another abandoned warehouse to live in, and Mary, who already thought them all crazy, wanted the night to end as quickly as possible. And Angel, well, Angel who we all know is no longer ‘playing with a full sack’ was pretty close to losing it thanks to Spike’s persistent complaining. They pulled into the driveway of the third house. It was a large house, not too perfect, a brick house that was large enough to house the entire vampire coven. "I like this one so far." Spike said as they got out of the car.
"And it’s wheelchair accessible." Mary mentioned, glancing at her clipboard of information."Go ahead." They entered the house to find it was pretty much perfect. The living room was huge and the basement was large enough to provide homes for the rest of the vampire coven.
"Is it possible?" Spike
asked, his eyes moving around the room, "Is it possible that after this truly hellish night we have finally found a house?"
"I think..." Angel began. He was interrupted by a loud, rather annoying sound that appeared to be coming from next door.
"Is someone torturing a cat or something?" Spike asked, quickly
covering his ears to shield them from the sound. "What in bloody hell is that?"
"It’s an accordion." Angel groaned, also covering his ears in order to minimize the damage done to them by the instrument.
"A what? Why the hell is someone playing an accordion?" Spike asked, Angel turned his head slightly to pick up the direction where the sound was coming from.
"It’s polka! It sounds like a polka band is playing next door or something." Angel rushed to the window, slamming it shut and closing the shutters and the curtains in a desperate attempt to drown out the sound from next door. It was no use for the sound penetrated into the house, despite Angel’s best efforts. Angel then turned around to face Mary. "Could you excuse us again?" this time the polite smile was gone, in its place was a rather annoyed expression. Mary nodded once and retreated from the room quickly. Once she was gone Angel turned to face Spike. "I’m an Iggy Pop/Sex Pistols kind of guy. I really can’t picture myself living next door to Uncle
Jimmy’s Polka Jamboree."
"We could make the music stop. We could kill them all. Musicians are always delicious. Even bad ones." Drusilla murmured, Spike gave a nod of agreement, he turned to Angel, expecting a similar response.
"No." Angel stated firmly. Spike did a double-take out of shock that Angel, the new and improved version, would refuse to kill someone.
"And why in bloody hell not?" Spike protested.
"A few reasons. First of all because I don’t want to have to talk to and deal with the Sunnydale’s finest." Angel responded, Spike groaned and rolled his eyes.
"Angel, this is the Sunnyhell police department we’re talking about here. They’re inept. They couldn’t possibly be any more oblivious
to the obvious than they are now." Spike reasoned.
"Exactly. Here’s a trivia question for you, Spike. A person and/or group of persons are murdered. Do the inept police suspect A) enemies, B) friends, or C) the next door neighbors who just moved in who look freaky and act even freakier?" Spike thought for a moment and then sighed.
"C." Spike mumbled, a somewhat triumphant smile appeared on Angel’s
face, this usually came whenever he was able to prove Spike wrong about anything. "Fine, so we can’t live here, that’s just great! I’m too stressed. I need a cigarette." he fumbled through his pockets, finally finding a pack of cigarettes. But no lighter. "It’s just not my night." Spike muttered. "Can we stop now? We’re
never going to find a house to live in."
"I can’t believe that Spike, William the Bloody, is going to give up so easily. I thought I taught you better than that. Well, I’m not giving up so fast and I’m sure as hell not going to spend another day in the sewers of Sunnydale. We’re going to find a house because we’re not leaving until we do!" Spike watched and listened to Angel’s speech. There was fierce determination in his voice and Spike knew that they would either find a new home that night or die trying.
"Thank you, Captain Ahab. Hey! Maybe after we’re done here we can go hunt Moby Dick." Angel glared coldly at Spike, this only made Spike want to laugh.
"Three things, Spike. One, do you see a peg leg? Second of all, I’m looking for a house, not a whale. And third, I’m just trying to boost morale a little here. Is a little enthusiasm too much to ask for?" Angel inquired, extending his arms in exasperation.
"Under the present circumstances, yes. We’ve been running around all bloody night--Dru is hungry and I’m getting pissed off--"
"You were pissed off to begin with. You were biased before the whole damn thing even started." Angel interrupted.
"The point is I don’t like the sewers any more than you do but all this running around is ridiculous. There is no house in the world built with a vampire coven in mind. If it’s not one thing it’s another. We’re never going to find exactly what we’re looking for."
"Look, Roller Boy, we’re going to find a house, damn it!" just as Angel shouted, Mary reentered the room.
"I take it you don’t want the house...." she said softly.
"What was your first clue?" Spike mumbled under his breath, or lack there of. Angel, on the other hand, put his polite expression back on and looked at Mary.
"It’s like what I say, a gentleman is a person who can play the accordion but doesn’t." Angel said with a fake smile.
"You never say that." Spike interrupted.
"Don’t get technical with me. Let’s get out of here." Angel replied.
"Well, I only have one more house that fits your requests. It’s up by Mockingbird Street, it’s a pretty upper-middle class neighborhood but the house is rather inexpensive. Shall we?" Mary asked, Spike sighed softly and shrugged.
"Sure, why not?" he asked hopelessly and he rolled along with
Angel, Drusilla and Mary back the car.
They got back in the car once again and drove to the next house.
The street was scattered with nice suburban houses, a very yuppie neighborhood by the look of it. Near the end of the block, however, sat a mansion like brick house surrounded by a black iron fence. The house looked rather out of place, adding a dark, rather sinister quality to the neighborhood. "This one?" Drusilla asked as they pulled into the driveway.
"This one I like!" Spike exclaimed with a grin. They got out of the car and once again, after getting an invitation from Mary, went inside. The house was even more impressive to them on the inside. It was dark, rather gothic, with tons of room, a large basement, no sky lights and enough room to comfortably house the entire vampire coven. As Spike and Drusilla looked around Angel spoke with Mary about the price.
"Why is this place so inexpensive?" Angel asked,
surveying the room. "Is the wood bad or something?"
"No, everything is fine as far as the house is concerned. No one has lived here in over twenty years. After the prospective buyers hear the rather colored history and the story of the house no one wants to live here." Mary answered. It was clear that whatever the story was, it was not one she willfully wanted to tell.
"It’s not built on an ancient Indian burial ground, is it? Because we’d be okay with that."
"Yeah, we’re pretty good with the dead and undead. We don’t mind them at all." Spike interjected, Mary shook her head, though confused once again.
"No, it’s not. You see, twenty years ago this house was the scene of a number of very gruesome murders." she replied, Angel glanced at Spike who laughed slightly.
"Really? Now, was it really grisly or just a little grisly? I want details. Are we talking really grisly or just a standard murder?" Spike asked, clearly interested now.
"It was quite grisly, in fact. It was in all the Sunnydale papers twenty years ago." she replied, as though they should already know all about it already.
"We’re foreigners." Spike answered with an eyeroll.
"Well, five people were murdered in this house, in this room in fact." she said, she wrapped her arms around herself, it was clear that being in the house was making her uncomfortable, as it would to any well adjusted person. But, of course, neither Spike, Drusilla or Angel are well adjusted.
Angel, Spike and Drusilla exchanged glances and in unison exclaimed, "We’ll take it!"
"Why didn’t you show us this one first?" Spike asked quickly.
"You’re kidding, right?" Mary asked, her jaw had dropped and she looked completely shocked.
"No, I like this house. It’s perfect. Why don’t you go and draw up
the papers?" Angel asked with a grin.
"All right..." she said softly and then walked out of the room,
still in a state of shock.
"It’s perfect!" Drusilla said, spinning around the empty room in a mock waltz.
"Would now be a good time to mention how we’re going to decorate this place?" Angel asked, glancing around at the empty room.
"That’s an argument for another night." Spike replied with a final
sigh, this one not out of frustration or annoyance, but out of relief that it was finally finished.
And that’s the story of how the Sunnydale vampires got a new home.
