Idiots to Lovers (bxb)

40 | Snow Monster

"I am not climbing down that tree again." I raised my shovel in the direction of the destroyed trunk.

Everett groaned. "I could use a little help here."

I hoisted one end of the thick branch. "Where should we put this?"

"Just lay it right here, it can fertilize the tree and help the broken part grow back."

"We'd have to bury it really deep though," I said doubtfully. "We should probably just get rid of it; it'll be a mess in your yard."

Glancing around the garden, I saw that it was already a terrible mess. I could only hope that it would snow again and cover it up before his parents got home.

"No it's fine, it'll be gone soon," Everett said.

"Maybe the rest of it," I mused. "But the branch is much too big to be buried by any snowing."

"It doesn't need to be buried. It'll just break down in a few days and fertilize the whole place."

My jaw went slack. "Everett, it doesn't just- just disappear."

"It decomposes! It goes back in the ground," he exclaimed, waving at the branch.

"Yes but that's...over years." I sighed. "And generally works on much smaller chunks."

"Oh." He paused. "I've just been breaking plants and scattering them around all these years. It always disappears the next day. I thought I was fertilizing the yard."

"Your dad probably has to clean it all up later."

Everett looked thoughtful for a moment. "He does get annoyed sometimes, but I was confused as to why. I thought I was helping."

I looked on, bemused, as Everett straddled the thick branch and started tugging. He finally managed to yank out a few short twigs which he then jabbed ferociously into the pile of melted snow.

"Why does this snowman have three arms?" I questioned as I got to collecting pebbles.

"Mm...no, one of them is the nose."

"But it's the same length as the arm twig." I picked up an oblong stone and tossed it away, trying to find a smaller one with a more rounded shape. It didn't exactly match the stone I had picked out for the left eye.

"You just have to use your imagination," Everett advised. He picked up a hefty stone and threw it onto the heap, collapsing it even more if that were possible. "There, you can use that for the other eye."

The snowman lay in a sad puddle, half buried under the large rock that was meant to be its eye. With broken sticks and streaks of mud, it looked more like a snow monster than a man. It was a grotesque sight.

"It looks sort of okay actually.... Not as bad as I thought it would turn out!" Everett beamed. "Let's go inside. I'll make hot chocolate!"

A/n: empiresofwater made this pic for me! She writes queer historical fiction, so if that sounds like something you're interested in you should check out this link to her profile! —> empiresofwater