Prompt:
You have moved into a house that used to belong to a super villain- one who still hasn't gotten all of their stuff moved out.
~
The house was nice-looking from the outside, if a little rundown. Nothing out of the ordinary. It had sun-bleached siding that might have been blue at some point but were now just dust grey. The shutters and door were a dark blue. The roof black shingles that were peeling at the corners.
Inside, however, was a whole different story.
Your realtor said it was owned by a super villain. That certainly explained the table of ray guns you passed in the open house.
But you didn't expect that those ray guns would still be there when you moved in. Actually, most of the things that were there during the walk through were still there. The tubing and wires on one wall of the kitchen that had to have been a part of an art project, because you saw no other possible use for them. Probably aesthetic.
The pool out back still had sharks in it, but they seemed friendly enough, so you didn't really mind. It keeps people from hopping the fence and skinny dipping.
This was probably why you got the house for such a low price. But, whatever. It was a good neighbourhood and well within your price range.
The equipment you could probably sell.
A week after you moved in, your boxes still lining the halls because you couldn't be bothered, you heard a key in the door.
"Oh, hey there. I didn't think you'd be home." At least the villain looked a little sheepish. "I forgot a few things."
You wave him in, wondering to yourself if super villains had always been this attractive, or if it was just this one.
He grabbed a few things, and a couple of ray guns, and left.
He came back two weeks later.
"Why are you at home?" he asked, baffled. You still haven't fully unpacked your boxes, but now you had a couch instead of just sitting on your old beanbag chair from college. "Don't you have to work?"
You shrug. "I'm a writer. I work from home."
"Oh." And he moved through the house to gather up more of his things.
Three weeks go by, you sitting in your house of still unpacked boxes (what can you say, procrastination had gotten you this far in life) eating cereal in your pajamas while watching cartoons, before he comes back.
"Hello!"
You wave your cereal spoon, eyes glued to the t.v. He comes in, grabbing a few things here and there, before stopping beside the couch to see what you're watching.
"I haven't seen this one."
"Have a seat," you tell him.
It becomes a routine, him coming over to watch cartoons with you. It started as once a week, to see the new episodes of whatever it is that is on at the time, then gradually progresses until he's there all the time. Oh, he makes up the strangest excuses to be there, 'I forgot my plant', 'gotta feed the sharks', 'the electrical people can't come in to take out the wiring I put up because they're scared of me' (which may or not be true), and you humour him.
"Why don't you just move back in?" you ask one day, laptop on the kitchen counter as the two of you try to recreate the recipe shown there. "I mean, you're here all the time anyway."
He froze, and softly asked, "You mean it?"
"Well, yeah. Most of your stuff is still here. Just make it official."
He let out a happy sound and reached into his pockets. When he pulled out his hands, they were full of tiny cubes of shrunken furniture and clothes. From one of the drawers he removed a shrink ray (and you didn't even question why he kept it in the kitchen, of all places), and left to begin putting his things away.
You shake your head fondly, and return to cutting up the carrots.
