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The couch squeaked under Fareeha's weight, the brawny security guard leaning back on the couch and staring at the blank living room wall. In fact, almost all the walls were just a blank, white surface. It had been bothering her for a while now, and if her mother was to keep stopping by, or they reached a conclusion about the adoption papers, things needed to change. Drastically.
"Babe?" Pharah called to the kitchen where her wife was making lunch for the rabbit.
"Ja, sweetheart? What's the matter?" Angela appeared in the space between the kitchen and the living room, carrying a plate towering high in lettuce and carrots. "If this is about that hole in the backyard, I already filled it."
"What? No...Wait, what hole?!" Fareeha squinted, inquisitive as Mercy cheerfully opened the door to Dieter's cage, dainty setting the salad in front of his face before taking her spot next to Fareeha on the couch. "Nevermind. What I was saying was, this house is....how do you say.... really empty."
Angela blinked a few times, confused as she surveyed the room. Besides Dieter's cage, the couch, the classic recliner, the coffee table, and of course the T.V., the room was barren. Fareeha's exercise bike had been put back in the attic for the spring season, much to Mercy's dismay. "What are you talking about? We have plenty of things."
Fareeha gave her eccentric mate a look of disappointment. "What about some plants?"
"We have a nice garden out back." Mercy crossed her arms defensively, the tulips blooming magnificently this year.
"Some paintings?" Fareeha threw her hands up, frustrated. Angela shrugged and gestured to a dark stain on the left wall near the roof. "....Coffee is not a painting, and don't talk to me about that. I'm still angry it didn't come out."
"I could bring down some lab equipment from upstairs, if you think that would help?" Mercy suggested with a jolly smile. Fareeha exhaled through her teeth at the thought. The upstairs room Angela called 'her lab' was something of a fright. Although Pharah had never been inside unless blindfolded, the loud whirring and occasional gleeful laughter was more than enough to turn her away.
"....I think we'll be quite fine without it. I was just gonna suggest maybe going to the Goodwill? Pick up some decorations or something? Maybe a few lamps?" Fareeha got up off the couch stiffly, car keys already in hand. Angela thought about all the things she had planned for the day, which was, approximately, nothing.
".......fiiiiiiine. A household can never have too many lamps, I guess."
"This place smells like my mothers."
"Bare with it, babe, there's deals to be had!" Fareeha stood triumphantly in the entryway of the dimly-lit thrift shop. Miles of aisles stood before them, their racks cluttered with musky-looking junk. A single employee sat disheartenedly at the counter, reading a novel as his glasses slipped lazily down his nose. He looked like a statue, cobwebs and all. "You never know what you might find!"
"I found a knife. Can I keep it?" Angela pulled a rusty looking scimitar off one of the nearby shelves, brandishing it with piqued interest.
"Babe. Put that back in the puzzle shelf where you found it. No weapons. You’ll get tetanus."
"Aww." The bored doctor put the blade back before following Pharah into the surprisingly large expanse of the shop. You could almost hear the Indiana Jones theme as Fareeha took her time looking over every heap of discarded tools or electronics. Angela kept to herself, lightly touching this item or that, looking for something to play with. ".....Sweetheart, extension cords aren't very fun. I think i'm going to go look around." Fareeha didn’t even look up, face buried in used couplings and wiring.
"Good thinking. We can cover more ground that way. Keep an eye out for anything nice."
Angela groaned, exhausted, mourning the loss of her previous life as it seemed destined she stay stuck in this godforsaken shop for the rest of time. Technically, she'd been there for only two and a half hours. But still. "This is so booooring ....The house doesn't need anything fancy, it's practical! Practical!" Ziegler threw herself on the pile of knick knacks she had collected, laying on the broken coach in the furniture section with all the drama of a 1950's abused housewife wanting to return to her mother's. Grumbling, she picked through the mound of items she deemed useful. A nice sun hat, a broken microscope, some chipped coffee mugs, and a few empty syringes. A nice haul, if she said so herself.
"Babe? Find anything good?" Fareeha walked through the looming shelves of the Goodwill, her arms piled with various things she'd found, even more in a shopping cart behind her. "I found some paintings and stuff for the den, plus some kitchen utensils...and some new bike tires too!"
"Oh....Really...Well I bet you're just dying to know what kind of treasures I found!" Angela laughed as she hid her pile of garbage behind herself, rather peeved at being stuck there.
"........Um...Right.." Fareeha let an awkward silence form before blinking in realization, turning around and searching through her cart. "Oh! I’m sorry. Here, I brought you something!" After a few seconds, Pharah whipped out a white ball, rotating it around and revealing its grinning smile as a skull. "I found this in the holiday department! Pretty cool, huh?!"
Angela didn't speak, taking the skull with fascination and turning it over in her hands, inspecting every nook of it before looking up at her wife. "This is real."
The two looked at each other in silence.
“Can I still keep it?”
“......What the fuck.”