mel my beloved, have you thought about gardener ian today? 🍅 what am i saying, of course you have. however, have you thought specifically about how over time, mickey will become less apathetic about the garden and will start pulling out a lawn chair to lay in the sun while ian gardens, and how every once in a while he’ll chime in with suggestions/compliments, until eventually ian wears him down with all of his cute talk about vegetables and “soil pH”and “optimal fertilizers” and he gets up off the lawn chair and goes to sit by ian’s side and grabs a trowel and says, “anything i can do?” and ian breaks into the biggest grin and hands him a packet of snap pea seeds and explains how deep to plant them & how much water to give them and then they pull some tomatoes off the vine and go make homemade Margherita pizza together? because i think about that a lot. 🌿
this......... this is what it’s all about 😭 the quality time the togetherness 💕
i think there’s a bit of a curve at first.... a brief window where mickey is like. a little jealous? of the wee tomato plants. i think that ian starts with house plants and maybe some little herbs, then moves onto tomatoes, and then works more veggies/fruits/flowers/weed lol/TREES?? into the mix as they get more space and he gets confident in his lil green thumb.
but somewhere around the time the tomatoes come in mickey starts to feel a smidge neglected. which basically means he gets 97% of ian’s attention instead of 98% 🙄 you know how ian gets when he’s learning something new, he goes all in and mickey is not used to playing second fiddle to some little red bitches. he grumbles when he sees ian pull out his gardening gloves and drops some sly comments when ian goes to get more supplies. you got somethin goin on with the guy at the nursery gallagher? ian just rolls his eyes fondly - yeah, he’s got a thing for the sunhat.
mickey hovers near the yard for a while, watching. he tries to sit on the couch, drink a beer, watch some tv. but he keeps catching glimpses of ian at work. whistling while he digs, humming to himself while he prunes. when he starts dousing himself with the hose, mickey gives up and drags the lawn chair over. ian, having totally done that on purpose, starts teaching mickey about weeds and worms and vines 😌 and you’re SO RIGHT, mickey resists but it absolutely becomes something they share together! when mickey really realizes that they get to eat what they’ve grown, it’s a done deal.
