Who: Angel and Spike. What: Discovering they're roommates. And hopefully not killing each other. Where: Their apartment. When: Backdated to July 13th, the day after Spike's arrival. Rating/Warnings: With these two? Verbal and/or physical violence may well ensue. Status: In progress.
When he'd first arrived, Angel had been relieved to see that he had an apartment entirely to himself. He hadn't lived around this many other people in years, unless the numerous employees of Wolfram & Hart counted, but at least they hadn't been living onsite like he had. It was going to take a while to adapt to being surrounded by strangers 24/7. Still, it could've been worse. He could've been living a few doors down from Buffy.
Which, of course, it turned out he was. Because that was exactly what he needed, to be distracted by her close proximity when he was supposed to be researching and finding a way to get back home. Not to mention all the opportunities for awkward conversations -- and questions he didn't really want to answer -- that would arise any time they bumped into each other.
And then he found out Spike was in town, and things with Buffy kind of blew up. It was absolutely his own fault for not telling Buffy in the first place; he knew that. He'd justified it as not being his place to say anything, because Spike would have told her himself if he really wanted her to know, but deep down it was also out of selfishness that he'd withheld the information. It had been nice, not to have to compete with the guy for once. Not that he was trying to get Buffy back, because he wasn't. Much as he would've liked to believe that some day she'd come around and tell him she was done baking, he knew they could never be together with the happiness clause on his curse still in place. But that didn't mean he wanted her to end up with Spike, either.
So he'd been trying to give her some space before he followed up his online apology with a face-to-face apology. She had every right to be angry with him, and she deserved not to have to look at him in the meantime. He hid out in the library during the day, keeping himself busy with research, and at night he took to patrolling the streets. He gave it a full day before he even risked going back to the apartment complex, intending to pick up some books he'd left in his room and then maybe take a quick nap.
That plan sort of fell apart when he got to the front door and saw the second nameplate, previously empty, had now been filled in. With Spike's name.
Angel heaved an enormous sigh and rubbed a hand over his face. Of course they were rooming together. This was the universe's way of punishing him for withholding the full story of his year at Wolfram & Hart from Buffy. Or maybe it was the Senior Partners' doing. Maybe he had been sent to a hell dimension and this was how it worked: throw him into a strange town with no escape, slowly bring in every single person he had a complicated history with, and put them as close together as possible so he couldn't even avoid them. Then sit back and enjoy the show.
He considered turning around and leaving again, but it wasn't like he could stay away forever. He and Spike had eventually managed to be civil and even work well together this past year. They hadn't gotten off the best start on the network, and having Buffy around certainly complicated things, but maybe this wouldn't be as bad as he thought.
Opening the door, he peeked inside first, mainly to make sure Spike wasn't lounging around naked or something. (Not a sight he ever needed to see again.) "Spike?" he called warily.