#DID ANYONE SAY OVERPROTECTIVE PLANT DAD STEVE?!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

steveshairychest · 1 year

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Steve and Robin have been working at the plant nursery for months. It was the only job that would hire them both, and it's honestly been the best job they've had.

Steve loves taking care of the plants, loves the way the outdoor plants wave at him in the wind and sparkle in the sunlight after he's watered them. No one gives him weird looks when he talks to the plants because everyone that comes in understands, they're all plant people too, they know talking to plants is hard to resist. Steve loves that they are very good listeners, especially the ferns in the back corner of the nursery. They brush their long arms against Steve's cheek and make him feel so much better after he's finished dumping all his problems on the poor plant.

And then they get a new employee, a guy with long curly hair and too many tattoos and piercings for Steve to count. His name is Eddie. And he does not have a green thumb. Not at all.

Steve can't understand why the nursery hired this guy! He's hopeless!

Steve watches in horror from behind his beloved ferns as Eddie accidentally chops the head off one of the gorgeous rose blooms while pruning and then tries to hide the evidence. He walks away from the rose bush with the poor chopped off bloom clenched tightly in his fist and then he dumps it in the compost bin.

Steve spends the rest of the afternoon glaring at the new guy while talking to the poor rose bush. Eddie flushes a shade of red similar to the rose he murdered any time Steve looks at him, and Steve hates how pretty he looks, hates that it causes a small smile to pull at his lips.

And then Eddie drops a watering can on a peace lily, a peace lily that Steve spent weeks nurturing back to life and the spell Eddie put on him with his flushed cheeks and big, brown eyes is broken.

Robin pities the poor new guy, she can see he's struggling, so she just makes him do all the heavy lifting with her. She doesn't want him anywhere near Steve's precious plants. She saw Steve reach for his giant pruning shears a few days ago when Eddie went near his ferns.

"You know he's terrified of you." Robin says to Steve on their joint lunch break. They're sitting on a stack of soil bags watching Eddie potter around and show people the plants they're looking for. Steve will give him that, he's good with people. Really good.

"Why? I'm nice." Steve takes a bite of his sandwich and avoids Robin's stare. He knows she's giving him the 'don't bullshit me' stare and if he looks, he'll crumble and do something ridiculous like admit he has been kinda mean to the new guy and that he should have just helped him out from the start instead of threatening to chop his fingers off every time he touched Steve's plants.

Steve sighs. "OK, fine. I've been a dick." Robin nods and steals the last bite of Steve's sandwich.

"Now, make it right and play nice with the pretty boy."

"He's not pretty."

"That's not what you said to your precious ferns yesterday. I think you said –" Steve walks off before she can finish and ignores her laughter as he stalks over to where Eddie is crouched in front of the baby succulents.

Steve clears his throat to get his attention and the poor guy jumps in fright and nearly smacks a succulent off the stand. "Steve! Hi! I was just talking to them. I promise."

Steve stifles a laugh and sits down on the floor in front of the low plant stand. He gently pulls a dead leaf off one plant before offering Eddie a smile, a truce. "That's good. They like it when you talk to them. I actually sing to them when I'm here alone." His sudden gentleness must spook Eddie because he just blinks at Steve, his mouth open slightly as he stares in disbelief that Steve actually just spoke to him.

"You can sing?" Eddie sits down next to him and mirrors Steve's actions; gently pulling dead leaves off and checking the soil.

"No, I can't." He laughs. "But the plants don't seem to mind."

They sit in silence for a minute before Steve gathers up his small pile of dead leaves and stands up, Eddie follows suit. "I'm sorry I've been such a dick." Steve rushes out before he loses the courage to admit it. "It's just... you're awful with plants."

Eddie laughs, the sound catches Steve off guard and echoes around the nursery, and Steve realises in that moment that he's never heard Eddie laugh before. It's loud and beautiful and Steve wants to hear it again. Every day.

"I know. I don't have a green thumb at all, but this is the only job that would take me. I think the plants want me to quit."

Steve wanted him to quit. He'd grumbled to Robin about it nearly every day. Eddie knew that and he still stayed. He smiles at Steve in a way that says he doesn't mind, he's just teasing.

But Steve still feels like a total asshole.

"I could teach you how to look after them properly." Steve offers. "I should have offered to help weeks ago." He adds on quietly as they walk through the rows and rows of plants. Steve touches all of them gently, he grazes his fingers along their leaves in a friendly greeting.

"I'd like that. I'd like that a lot." Eddie says with a smile so bright it could rival the sun and cause all of the flowers to bloom.

They spend nearly every day at work together after that. Steve helps Eddie learn all the plants' names, their technical names and the secret names Steve's given them all. Steve shows him how to prune and shape the baby hedges and tries not to blush when their fingers touch while passing over the shears. Eddie is a fast learner. He absorbs everything Steve says and then executes it perfectly. He looks over at Steve and smiles excitedly after he successfully prunes the rose bush without chopping a single bloom off.

The more time they spend together, the more Steve becomes aware of the feeling blooming in his chest. It tickles his ribs and causes him to blush and bump shoulders with Eddie more often, causes him to tuck a stray piece of hair behind Eddie's ear and brush his hand along Eddie’s back whenever he passes him.

The new bloom in his heart causes him to kiss Eddie in the back corner of the nursery behind the ferns.

Turns out Eddie has a green thumb after all because there is something so beautiful blooming between them, and so far only the ferns know about it.

#DID ANYONE SAY OVERPROTECTIVE PLANT DAD STEVE?!!!#steddie #stranger things #eddie munson #steve harrington #st4 vol2 #steveddie #stranger things s4 #robin buckley #I DIDN'T PROOF READ THIS I'M SORRY IN ADVANCE

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screensirenfic · 4 years

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Menthol Cigarettes - Chapter 3

dWhen Steve had told me he’d be spending his summer slinging ice cream, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing, because honestly; I’d thought it was a joke.

I mean; Steve Harrington doing manual labour. It was like the punchline of the dumbest joke in Indiana.

He was like, born into trust fund living; the walking talking example of upper class privilege.

But Steve didn’t find it very funny, and he did fail nearly all of his finals.

Once I realised that it wasn’t a poorly conceived joke, and Steve was actually being serious, he told me that his dad had cut him off because he couldn’t even get into community college, even with all his parents influence.

So that’s why he was being payed three bucks an hour to shovel cheap gelato for spoilt brats and snarky teenagers.

But on the bright side, his new job made it extremely easy to do things like this.

“Come on, Come on...” Steve beckoned the kids out the backdoor of Scoops, into the employees only corridors which just about connected every business in the mall.

Originally purposed for quickly and covertly delivering merchandise from the loading bay out back, right to the stores’ stock rooms without being seen by the general public, they served a pretty good secondary purpose for sneaking into places you weren’t necessarily supposed to go; like in this case, the movie theatre.

The kids disappeared down the corridor, already knowing the route like clockwork, considering this was the third time I’d called upon Steve for this very purpose this month.

“I swear if anyone hears about this-“ He called after them, delivering his usual serving of a cheap threat he had neither the will nor the inclination to deliver on.

“We’re dead!” The kids finished for him, having already heard this one before, and it already had lost its lustre.

Steve just sighed, already silently rueing the day we started helping these little shits, before slamming the door behind him.

“Ahoy sailor!”

The words slipped out of my mouth before I’d even had time to think about them; the seductive lilt in my voice and provocative pose on the cold metal counter supposed to come across as a joke between friends.

“Shut up” Barked Steve, one hand running through his hair as he shot me one of those looks that told me he was in no mood to be made a mockery of today.

So instead I just jumped off the counter, cackling all the while, because I just found it so amusing how thoroughly pissed he could look in a cute little sailor suit.

“Did I ever tell you, you look absolutely adorable in that suit?” I asked him, and it wasn’t entirely a rib, because Steve’s soft little cherub face really made that hat work.

“Save it.” He snapped, walking past me to go wash up some ice cream scoops.

“Jesus; Steve! You’re not still mad at me?” I sighed; lolling my head back, because I honestly couldn’t believe we were still doing this! It had been five months!

I knew I hurt him, and I knew that sort of shit took time to heal, but for Christ’s sake; he carried it like some sort of cross to bear, and it was really out of character for Steve to be stubborn about something with me for so long.

“I don’t know. It just seems you only come to see me when you want something...” He stated, and I had to admit that may be truer than I’d like as of late.

It’s not that I didn’t want to see Steve; of course, I did!

He was my best friend, despite all the bullshit that had gone on over the past year; it’s just I could never find the time.

It’s just with working and El and Finals, and a hundred and one other commitments that I really couldn’t afford to skip out on, having time just to drive around and hang out with my right hand man was in short supply.

“Come on, Steve! You know I’m busy doing work and everything...” I urged him out of his rut, walking to his side as he took his frustration out on the scoops he was scrubbing.

“Does everything cover blonde assholes with Camaros?” Steve snapped, getting back to the real route of the problem.

“Jesus; we’re not doing this again...” I sighed, because yes; we were right back at square one with Steve acting pissy because maybe we disagreed on our opinions of a certain blonde haired bad boy who had swept the town by storm over the past nine months.

“I just find it funny how you always have time for him-“ Steve began to gripe; but he never got the chance to finish his complaint as Robin pulled open the service window, eager to remind Steve that he had other responsibilities besides playing overprotective white knight to a grown ass woman.

“Yo! Dingus! Work first; marriage counselling later! We got sundaes to scoop!” She stated; having lain witness to the same argument over and over for the past month, and clearly finding the whole thing as frustratingly pointless as me.

Steve was never going to relent on this.

He’d already formed his opinions and there was nothing I could do to change them.

All I could hope for is that he’d learn to forgive me in time; if not understand why I felt the way I do.

Steve pulled on his hat, sighing deeply as he finally realised that this conversation was going to get him nowhere.

“Look; I gotta go, but I’ll call you later.” I said, reaching out to gently squeeze his arm in a way I hoped let him know I still cared, even if Steve thought I didn’t.

And then I leaned in, planting a soft kiss to his cheek like I’d done a hundred times before; my lips featherlight in his cheek as I silently asked for forgiveness once more, already knowing I was far from receiving it.

Maybe Steve hates me; maybe he didn’t, but either way I was determined to show him I still cared about him, if only as a friend.

It might not have been what he’d wanted, but it was something; and I just prayed that something would be enough to keep us above water.

I made my way back to the door to the front, already knowing better than to hope that Steve might actually have something to say after our arguments-

“Off to see the Road Warrior again?”

Steve asked; scorn ripe in his voice, but I knew better than to start another argument now, already feeling sorry for Robin having to play ref all this time.

“Goodnight Steve”

Instead I bided him goodnight, slipping through the staff door and past a scoop slinging Robin who looked more than done for the day.

“Dingus giving you trouble?”

She asked as I made my way back round the front of the counter; ever ready to try and bring a smile to my face when Steve was being difficult, which seemed almost constant as of late.

“Nothing I can’t handle.” I reassured her with a smile, pulling out my bike keys, ready to blow this joint ASAP.

“Want me to go rough him up for you?” She offered, leaning over the counter with a conspiratorial smirk on her face.

“I don’t think it would help” I replied, zipping up my jacket, because it may be summer out there, but the temperature still dropped at night, and fuck if I was getting chill blazes in a crop top.

“No; but it might make you feel better...” She continued to coax, and even though I knew she was joking, I couldn’t help but notice how she chewed her lip at the suggestion .

“Be careful; I might take you up on that.” I smiled; though I wasn’t exactly sure what she was offering.

Robin was cool.

Strange; but cool, though sometimes I felt like there was more going on behind her words than what she was actually saying to me.

Still; that was an enigma to work out another time, and I was late enough as it is.

“Would love to talk more, but I got a date with the Lone Wanderer.” I saluted ironically, strolling out of Scoops and back into the madness of the mall.

“Drive safe; Road Warrior!” Robin called after me as I disappeared in a crowd of pastels in the pursuit for adventure and adrenaline.

TAGLIST: @lemonypink @daringvixon

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