Work Text:
“Thena! Come out here quick! Something terrible happened!”
Athena burst out of the front door and into the garden where Juniper was standing. “What’s wrong? Is that dumb squirrel eating your tomatoes again?”
“Worse than that,” Juniper said, starting to tear up, “look.” She gestured towards the main part of the garden, which was overrun with weeds of all shapes and sizes. Some were even starting to choke her rose bushes!
“Your heart sounds like a thunderstorm right now, Junie,” Athena said, laying a hand on her shoulder, “so I’m assuming that this is very, very bad for the garden. Should we put some pesticide on it, or...”
“ABSOLUTELY NOT,” Juniper shouted, startling herself a little bit, before taking a deep breath and continuing, “pesticides will do a lot more harm to the garden and the local insects than good. We’re gonna have to pull out all of these weeds by hand, and then we’re gonna have to put mulch over all the exposed soil.”
Athena nodded, then looked down at the pajamas she was currently wearing. “I should probably change out of these, huh.”
“Yeah, you should. I’ll go get the supplies.” And with that, her girlfriend zoomed back inside. Juniper took a moment to further examine the damage to her garden. Luckily, most of the little weeds were easy to pull out, which meant that they could be done with pulling the weeds in about an hour, at the very most. That left plenty of time in the day to relax outside.
But as Juniper walked through her house to her backyard gardening supply shed, she realized two things. One, that she should really get around to organizing her shed. Random tools and seed packets were stored haphazardly, which made it difficult to find their gardening gloves. The second thing she realized was that she was out of mulch. Luckily for her, she had an easy solution to this problem.
It took them until the fourth ring, but Robin picked up. “Heya! To what do I owe the pleasure of your C-A-L-L?”
“You’ve been working a lot with wood lately, right?” she asked.
“Oh yeah, Hugh even showed me how to use a chainsaw last week! Not to brag, but I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”
“NO THEY HAVEN’T.” Juniper could hear Hugh’s voice loud and clear through the phone, which meant he was probably helping them with a project.
“You didn’t hear that,” Robin said.
“Anyways, do you have any wood chips lying around?”
“Shit, I’ve got more than I know what to do with. I was thinking of just using them for some kind of bonfire.”
“That’s not very environmentally friendly, Robin. Just give them to me. I need something to mulch my garden with.”
“Sure thing. Bye, Junie!” And with that, they hung up. Juniper slipped her phone back into her pocket and opened her box of gardening gloves, grabbing a green pair for herself and an orange pair for Athena.
When she got back to the front garden, Athena was waiting for her by an empty trash can. She’d pulled her hair back into a high ponytail, and was wearing a tank top that showed off her slightly muscled arms and broad shoulders.
It was barely noon, but Juniper still felt hot under her sun hat.
“Alrighty,” Athena said, “where should I start?”
“You should start with putting these on,” Juniper said, handing her girlfriend the pair of orange gloves, “a lot of the weeds have little spikes on them.”
“Wow, they’re even my color!” Athena said, looking down at the gloves.
“From now on, those are yours whenever you help me with the garden.”
“Oh, Junie, I love you.”
If she felt hot before, she felt boiling now. Of the two of them, Juniper said “I love you” casually far more often than Athena did. She really didn’t mind this, Athena certainly showed Juniper that she loved her whenever she could, but those three words still caught her by surprise.
“I love you too, Thena. Now let’s get to weeding.”
Athena nodded, pulling her gloves on and snapping the bottom of one of them against her wrist like an actor in a medical drama. Juniper walked over to the opposite end of the garden, dragging the trash can behind her and leaving it in the middle.
It turned out that Athena was really good at uprooting weeds, which meant that the entire garden was weed-free in a little over half an hour. Now all that was left to do was wait for Robin to arrive with the wood chips. When Juniper texted them asking where they were, they responded that they’d just left their studio, which meant that it would take a while for them to get past all of the lunch hour traffic.
“Want to go back inside and make some popsicles while we wait for Robin?” Juniper asked Athena, who was still catching her breath from all the weeding.
“Do you even have to ask?” Athena said, “I feel like I could drink an elephant right now.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Exactly.”
Juniper shook her head, then walked over and gave Athena a kiss on her cheek. It was a bit sweaty, but it was worth it to see the flush that covered her girlfriend’s face afterwards.
“What kind do you want?” she asked, “I’ve got lemon, strawberry, orange…”
“Oh, orange sounds perfect,” Athena sighed.
“Orange it is, then,” Juniper said, “now let’s go back inside and make them.”
“Can we use those cute molds Apollo got us for Christmas?”
“Of course we can.”
Athena pumped her arm up and down in triumph as they walked back into their house. The air-conditioning made them sigh in instant relief as they made their way to the kitchen. Juniper opened the fridge, taking a moment to let its cool air envelop her, and took out the pitcher of fresh orange juice she’d squeezed a few days earlier. Athena dug through the drawers under the counter until she found the cherry blossom shaped molds.
“Do you think Robin’s gonna want one when they get here?” Athena asked.
“I mean, they do have to drive for quite a bit to get here,” Juniper said, “and I think Hugh might be driving them in his pickup, so we should make one for him, too.”
Athena nodded and laid out four popsicle molds on the counter, ready for Juniper to fill with orange juice. As soon as all four were full, they carefully laid them on the floor of their freezer and waited. Luckily, they didn’t have to wait for very long, since about twenty minutes later Hugh’s blue pickup truck pulled up to their driveway.
“Special delivery for our two favorite people!” Robin said, jumping out of the passenger side door as Juniper and Athena walked out of the house. When the three of them got to the back of Hugh’s pickup, they were greeted by enough wood chips to mulch at least ten gardens.
“Thank you so much, Robin,” Juniper said, “but I think this might be a bit much for our garden.”
Robin looked a bit bummed out at first, then their expression shifted into one of pure glee. “Does this mean we’re gonna have a B-O-N-F-I-R-E with the rest?!”
“What is it with you and setting things on fire lately?” Hugh said, appearing behind Robin.
“Oh, I think we have a fire pit in the backyard, actually,” Athena said, “so we could have a little campfire with the leftover wood chips.”
This seemed to appease Robin, who nodded in excitement. Hugh just sighed and opened the back of his car. A sizable pile of wood chips fell out, and the four of them started scooping them up and laying them on Juniper’s garden. Before any of them realized it, the entire garden was mulched and it was time for them to head inside and eat their popsicles.