Sam and Dean were meeting with a Realtor. And not just any Realtor, but a Sunnydale
business Realtor. John had been very specific when he had told Sam what he wanted. a
mechanic's garage for them to generate some legal income and a decent apartment above
it. That would keep out the vampires. Sam had already volunteered to run the office so
Dean and John could concentrate on fixing the vehicles. That would also give Sam a
place to keep all of their personal research on their demon and Hank summers. That was
something they didn't need to be advertising.
The first place they checked out was terrible. Too small, too run down, and there was no
way it could be defended. The second one however, was perfect. It had two bays for
repair work, two offices in back and a break room with a shower on the ground floor. A
single, inside stairway was the only way to get to the apartment above. The apartment
itself was amazing, especially when Dean considered what they were used to. There were
three bedrooms, two baths, an actual kitchen and living room. Ok, so the kitchen and
living room were only separated by a breakfast counter and none of the bedrooms were
what you could call big, bathrooms either. But it was still better than most of the places
Dean had stayed in his life. Sam wasn't sure until he found out that the entire building
was available to buy for the back taxes, which was about the price he had worked out
would be the maximum they could spend on rent for both the garage and the apartment.
As they had scraped up enough between the three of them to cover the first month's rent
and a deposit, Dean sent Sam off to buy the building and began to unload the Impala.
Although his dad or Sam could have rented the place, he thought that Sam was the one in
the best position to actually purchase a building. No one was looking for him, on the off
chance that his dad had gotten into a bad spot, and well, he was legally dead. Besides, it
gave Sam a good excuse to stick around, maybe even finish up school here, rather than
going back to Stanford.
With a grin on his face, Dean started setting up the wards with Missouri's herb balls, one
in each wall on both floors. He knew they were only the most basic of purification, but
he was sure he could get one of the girls to do some of the stronger stuff. Salt lines across
all the doors and windows to the apartment. His gear into the smallest bedroom, Sam's in
the middle one. He would need a bigger bed, not that any of them were small men. His
dad could have the relatively largest one. The Impala was sitting in the car 'waiting' area
next to the repair bays. Dean ran his hand over her hood and could feel her contented
satisfaction. "Yeah, you like it here don't you, baby?"
"The paint job could use touching up, Dean." John said as he walked in the open bay
door carrying a few bags with Dawn right behind him.
Dean rushed over and grabbed two of the bags from John. "Don't talk about her like that
if front of her!" he whispered in a growl. He marched up the stairs in front of a very
shocked John and Dawn. Dean put the bags down on the counter and turned to face his
father and sister. He knew John would not let him get away with any back talk so he had
to get his explanation out fast. "She's not possessed, but she is aware. Kind of like a day,
I guess." He took the box Dawn was holding. "When I touch her I can sense her feelings.
She knows you Dad. Don't hurt her feelings please. It's not like I can reason with her.
She doesn't think. She just feels."
John nodded. This must be part of what Sam and Buffy had told him about, Dean's
abilities. He joined Dean in the very familiar process of moving into a new place. He
wasn't sure what to think about the Impala, though. His old car was aware? What did
that mean? "You sure it's not possessed? I've had more than a few ghost passengers over
the years."
Dean nodded. "Possessed objects 'feel' different. Especially if its a vengeful spirit. She
isn't confused, or upset, or anything like what a ghost would be feeling. And she doesn't
feel any more intelligent than an animal. What I get from her is more pure emotion than I
get from anything else I pick up from other things. Those I guess you could call traces of
people. Like instead of leaving their socks behind, they left this print of feeling and
thoughts. She's more like a family pet. She likes being inside, she likes being driven fast,
she likes it when both Sam and I are there, she doesn't like anything but people in the
front seat." Dean shrugged. "Besides, after Sam crashed her through the front door of a
house to get rid of that Lady in White right before Jess died, I put enough wards and
charms in and on her to make her ghost and possession proof."
"Good idea. I'll have to check it out and see if I need any of those for my truck." John
said. "You got the wards up here I see. How many bedrooms?"
"Three, that one's yours, Dad. Dawn, you ever sleep over here, I'll bunk in with Sammy."
"Ok. You guys do realize you have absolutely no dishes, right? Or furniture?" Dawn
asked, looking around the extremely bare apartment even after moving in all of her
family's things.
"Don't worry, Dawn Patrol." Dean smirked at her exasperated look. "We've done this
tons of times. A couple of trips into LA and we'll be set. I still don't know how we got
this place so cheap. Even just paying back taxes on it should have set us back more."
"Recent hellmouth victim." was Dawn's expert pronouncement. "taxes here are the
lowest in California. And this place probably hasn't been on the market for more than a
couple of weeks. In fact, it might have gone on the market as quickly as 24 hours after
the former owner's deaths. When you add in the time of year, back taxes are probably
under $1,000.00." She led the way back down the stairs.
"Mate for unlife." Xander growled as he drove to the airport. Today was just not his day.
First he finds out he's married to Spike. Anya breaks up with him. And then he finds out
there is no divorce among the undead, the only way to dissolve an undead marriage is for
one of the partners to dust. And when he reached the logical and totally correct decision
to dust Spike and thus put both of them out of their misery, he made the mistake of saying
it out loud. In front of Dawn, who was doing her schoolwork across the table from him.
It wasn't John's look of 'if you make my daughter cry, you'll wish I'd killed you' that hurt
Xander. It was the fear in Dawn's eyes. Spike was her favorite baby-sitter and a good
friend to her. Xander'd had a sneaking suspicion that the bleached menace was teaching
her how to hot wire cars and use a cross bow. When he flat out asked her this morning,
trying to get John on his side, she admitted it. And all John said was, 'Good, I'll test you
on it later.'! What kind of dad said that? The dad who raised the men who defeated
Glory, he reminded himself.
And now he was the one who was sent to pick up Captain Cornfed. At least he and Spike
could agree on that much, he thought ignoring the fact that he and Spike were actually
getting along pretty well these days. Riley was a pathetic whiner whose sole redeeming
value was that when he was sleeping with Buffy; she gained weight. That was because
she wasn't worried about her food intake when she was getting sex. Stupid slayer drives
were more than Xander could understand at times. Mix them in with a California girl's
mentality and he was lost. Personally he thought John would be a much better candidate.
Yuck! Did he really just think that! Xander sat down hard in the waiting lounge chair.
John was Giles' age. He had two sons who were older than Buffy. That was wiggsom.
On the other hand, he was younger than Angel. And he was alive. He treated both Buffy
and Dawn right. He didn't whine. He had more than 20 years experience in the
supernatural and was still willing to listen when he didn't know something. And he was
smart enough to know that the Scoobies were the experts on the hellmouth. All of that
was good. Xander sighed. He knew his internal debate was pointless. They were both
adults and they didn't need his meddling. If they got together it would be their decision,
not his. And right now, Buffy was dating Riley. John had one really big thing going for
him though, Xander thought as he waved at Riley coming out of the security check point.
We dumped Dawn in his lap and he not only took her in and protected her, he sent us
Dean and Sam.
"Don't tell me, Buffy's not here." Riley said sarcastically.
"She's patrolling. Glory's taken care of, but we've got another situation." Screams
erupted over by the check in desk, followed by several of the female attendants
scrambling up onto the counter. "Welcome back, you're just in time for the apocalypse."
"Didn't we do that last year?" Riley whined as he followed Xander over to the counter.
There were four Hektalik behind the baggage check, all sniffling around. Xander sighed
and pulled out the pistol he'd gotten from Dean. Four clean shots later he loaded Riley up
with two of the carcasses.
The chief of airport security ran over to Xander and demanded the gun. "I'm outside the
security checkpoint." Xander said slowly. "And I only pulled it out to deal with these."
He shoved on of the dead creatures in the man's face. "Now, we are expecting an
inundation of these large rodents. They are a cousin to the lemming. They are coming
here to die. A single shot to the head will kill them. You have to kill them because they
are rodents. It is a health code violation. Have someone load up the carcasses and bring
them to this warehouse." Xander wrote down the address on a card and passed it to the
security chief who looked at him in shock. "You need to have the cleaning staff use
bleach with cedar oil to clean up the blood. Just have them put cedar chips in the bleach
bottles. We're part of the disposal crew. This warehouse is where the carcasses are being
held pending disposal. Thank you." Xander collected the remaining Hektalik and left the
building.
Xander managed to get Riley, his gear, the books he had borrowed from Giles (which had
held up amazingly well), and the dead demons into his car with a minimum of fuss. Well,
only fuss from Riley. Man, he was already getting on his nerves. Why did today have to
be his day off? Why couldn't someone else have picked the prick up?