"Danny. This was a terrible idea."
"You thought the Industrial Revolution was a bad idea!"
"It destroyed society!"
"You don't get an opinion anymore!"
Laura dropped her head into her hands. This was the sixth house the three of them had looked at in two days, and everyone's patience was running thin. They had decided to move off-campus, taking advantage of Silas' remarkably lax housing rules to move during the break between winter and spring semester. At least, that was the plan. If they couldn't agree on a house in the next few days they would need to wait until the end of spring semester to move.
In theory, it wasn't that hard of a task. Find a place for three college students to live comfortably? Silas was in a college town – there were fairly cheap apartments everywhere. The fact that they only needed one bedroom made searching even easier.
In theory.
In practice, it was a nightmare. Danny had needed somewhere that was bordered by forest for some Summer Society ritual or hunt – she had refused to explain, saying that only Society members could know the inner workings of such a sacred organization – and that had narrowed down everywhere that wasn't on the fringes of town. Laura had wanted a bigger space than the dorms, which was easy, and an office-type room, which was a bit less easy. And Carmilla?
Carmilla hated everything.
Oh, she hadn't outright said as much, no. Instead she had nitpicked. She had nitpicked everything, down to the metal the door hinges were made of. The door hinges. After a week of trawling Craigslist, Laura was about ready to kill her.
Then Danny had had the brilliant idea of buying a house and turning part of it into an official Summer Society base of operations. Apparently, they worked out of a wing of the library at the moment, but as Danny put it, 'It's difficult to get stuff done when half of the room is trying to kill you and the other half can't decide if it exists or not'. Laura had conceded that it was practical, secretly very glad that Danny wouldn't be in the library nearly as much anymore. Carmilla had sighed and rolled her eyes, but both of her girlfriends could tell that she actually liked the idea. It appealed to the seventeenth-century noblewoman in her, having an estate instead of just renting a room from someone. Like a peasant.
Of course, since they had decided to look for a house, they actually had to look for the house. And decide on it. It was like pulling teeth. From a vampire. Which led to another week of Craigslisting before bickering their way to eight listings. Five of which had been shot down by one or another of them – one by Danny, because 'this forest is all wrong, it's far too Celtic, we'd be incinerated in a day'; another by Laura, because it would have been incredibly cramped with all the Summer Society girls running around in it; the other three by Carmilla, because… well, there hadn't really been an explanation given, just an imperious shake of the head.
The one they were ostensibly viewing now was, objectively, very nice. It had a modern feel, high ceilings and lots of natural light, but it also had hardwood floors and velvet curtains. Carmilla didn't seem to hate it particularly, which was progress. Laura liked it, although she admitted to herself that at this point she would probably take anything just to get it over with. Even Danny had had to admit that she liked the spot, and that it was probably a good fit for both them and the Society.
Which led to the argument.
Honestly, Laura didn't know what they were arguing about, nor did she particularly care at this point. She looked around the space a second time. Yeah, it was nice. She could see girls sparring over there, and there was a beautiful music room she could envision Carmilla singing in. She had even caught a glimpse of an office with a massive oak desk in it.
Sparing a glance at her still bickering girlfriends, Laura walked over to the realtor – who looked a little alarmed at the argument, which looked like it would devolve into violence soon – and calmly told her they would take it. Five minutes of paperwork and explanations later, the realtor handed Laura the keys, shot a distressed look at the wrestling twosome on the ground, and left the house as quickly as she could manage without outright running. Laura smiled.
"So, guys, we'll move in this Thursday?"
Two pairs of startled eyes glanced up at her, the movement on the floor stilling. Laura's smile widened. "I think this is gonna be great."