Author's Note: Hah! This has been bugging me for ages, and since I'm still at a block with WoaS, I decided to temporarily shift my focus to CM! Vince is a persistent little bugger. But I love him anyway. Him and his teddy bear, teehee. He hates me for that one. ^^

Oh, and it's in third person now, because I'm trying out a sort of new style. Tell me what you think. There are also some bits I had trouble wording, I think you'll be able to find them. Help is much appreciated; I still think this is crap, but less crap than as before. xD

Chapter One (Unnamed)

The sun blinked out over the rows of elegant suburban houses, hailed by a nearly uniform lighting of hundreds of lamps, overhead fans, and chandeliers from the hundreds of windows. In the distance, the ever-present sound of waves lapping gently against a rocky shoreline grew as the noise of passing cars and playing children died down. The town was left with an eerie sense of silence. Elsewhere, and in places Vince was more comfortable, the noise wasn’t slowing down. In fact, it was just getting started.

“I never thought I’d see the day when I’d get a bigger house in the suburb,” Vince grumbled.

“Shut it,” the man standing next to him said. His name was Stevie, and he stood arm-in-arm with the third and final piece of their trio -- a woman, this time, by the name of Chelsea. She had a bored look on her face.

“We told you, Vince. If you hate it so much, you could’ve stayed back with Sadie and Fraser and all them,” she said.

“And abandon you two hapless sods? Fat chance, love,” Vince retorted.

“Just shut up and get to the goddamn house,” Stevie pressed. Vince raised one eyebrow -- his way of expressing passive aggression -- and the three started off down the street again. They had waited for the cover of night before trespassing on the quiet, backwater suburb, hoping no one would see them. They had a squat to open -- a highly risky business in the land of security alarms and watchdog groups.

No one in the city would care about that. They had their own lives to lead. But the suburbs were a different story. People valued their property and worldly possessions here. Vince theorized it was because they had never actually experienced the world, so they had to scrabble for whatever indication of it they could.

Vince was always coming up with crackpot theories like that. Stevie suspected it was a side effect of massive amounts of booze.

The squat was a grand one, by squat standards. Stevie and a small crew of close friends -- pros in the squatting business -- had staked it out for weeks. It was only one story, but from what Stevie had been able to scope out, it had three bedrooms at the least. They wouldn’t have to knock down any walls, and Stevie and Vince could finally have their own rooms.

“But I still have to sleep on a sofa, don’t I?” Vince had grumbled.

“You complain too much,” Chelsea had observed.

“I like the sound of my own voice.”

The former owners still had the electricity hooked up. Someone had forgotten to cut it -- a lucky stroke for the squatters who swooped down on it like vultures on an abandoned zebra carcass. The plumbing needed a little work and it had taken a whole day to disable the alarm system (a precaution, even though it most likely didn’t work anyway), but the squat was more or less ready from the moment Stevie laid eyes on it.

The trio hadn’t brought much with them. They didn’t have much to bring to start with. Vince held a tattered drawstring knapsack that was stuffed with only a few articles of clothing, which hid his favourite teddy bear from the prying eyes of others -- his reputation was too good to let go based off a childish need to sleep while holding a trusted friend. Chelsea and Stevie shared space in a duffel bag Chelsea had found in a pile of rubbish and sewn back together in her spare time. The rest they would find in piles of rubbish or have Vince steal it, if it were small enough. The big, expensive stuff that was hard to come by in piles of rubbish would come later, even though Stevie had once found an entire bed, framework and all, in a skip.

Stevie shouldered the front door open, and the three stepped inside, closing the door behind Chelsea. The darkness was overwhelming, and all three tensed as something moved.

“Get out,” a voice growled, low and menacing, from somewhere to Vince’s right. “This place is not yours.”

“Hullo, Fraser,” Vince said in a bored tone.

A torch clicked on, illuminating the trio and silhouetting the pockmarked face of Fraser.

“Damn, how did you know it was me?” he said.

“One, you’re the person we asked to sit this place until we got here. Two, I’d know that cheap dialogue and faux-scary voice anywhere. You should really work on that, you know.”

Vince reached out, fumbling for the light switch on the wall. A single bulb above the foyer flickered on, and Fraser reluctantly switched off his torch. Vince patted him on the shoulder.

“Don’t fret, mate, you’ll get it one day,” he said. Fraser nodded, and walked out.

“Poor bastard,” Stevie said.

“Dunno about that, but this is one swanky place, Stevie,” Vince said, gazing up at the high, cathedral ceilings. “Look, it’s so fancy we’re in the foyer. I love how that rolls off the tongue. Foyer.”

Chelsea rolled her eyes and swaggered into the house proper.

“Dunno about you two idiots, but I’m staking out my territory.”

+++

A pair of eyes turned away from their owner’s bedroom window. The owner, a young man named Johnny, chewed on his thumb nervously. He knew them. He’d heard all about them from Ricky, his cousin in the city. Vince, the infamous petty thief. Stevie, the most notorious drug dealer around. Chelsea, the group’s real breadwinner -- by prostitution, no less.

The people in the suburbs knew them, too. They said their names like they were spitting out dirt. A trio of troublemakers, they said. Out to ruin the shining youth of the moment with their drugs and sex and rock ‘n‘ roll. They’d better not come near my house, filthy scum. No idea how to live respectable lives, perfectly fine with mooching off of us hardworking taxpayers who actually put effort into the lives we lead.

Johnny had always thought the people of his neighbourhood to be full of hot air.

And now they were hanging around close by, a good mile and a half from the outskirts of the city. Johnny could have sworn they were heading to the abandoned house down the block. He wished he could still see them, but the house was just barely out of his line of vision. He had seen, however, the shorter of the two men -- Stevie, his cousin had said his name was -- floating around the neighbourhood for weeks.

Maybe… maybe they’re moving in there, Johnny thought, trying not to get his hopes up too high. Maybe I’ll actually get to meet them… the way Ricky describes it, it’d be a riot. Vince sounds like a barrel of fun all on his own.

Johnny glanced out of his window again, even though he knew he wouldn’t see anything. He turned away, grabbed his coat, and tiptoed silently out of his room. He glanced into his younger sister’s room as he passed, just barely able to make out her sleeping form. He wished he could do something -- she was still young enough to escape the iron-ball imprisonment of so-called society. Johnny counted himself lucky that the infamous trio were moving into his neighbourhood. He could finally get away from the “grow-up-get-an-education-go-to-college-get-a-job-have-some-kids-and-die” cycle of life. There was more to it all; Johnny was certain.

But he knew she would never come, that she would never understand. Johnny could only pray that when she was his age, she’d see through the plot and get away like he would.

He spat at the closed door of his parents’ bedroom as he walked by, before padding down the stairs and ducking out of the house.

---

A/N: Chapter Two as soon as I write it! Oh, and I'm taking title suggestions. I can't keep stealing titles of albums forever. xD

Edit: Oh, and something I forgot. A "squat" is a term for an abandoned house taken up by homeless folks like the trio above.