#THEY JUST WANTED WUATS BEST FOR EACH OTHER

[sentfromwolves]

oc prompt game .  ( queen of the meadows. uselessness / mars & laurel ) 

< hoes b4 bros >

hwa: mom

hwa: mom

hwa: mom

starmom: son wuat the fuck its 4am

hwa: o fuck i forgot timezones again

hwa: wait

hwa: why r u up ! !!  

hwa: MOM

hwa: go 2 SLEEP

starmom: no now im here and awake and alive enough whats up son

hwa: mom we need an intervention (go 2 sleep)

starmom: jesus christ

starmom: for who

hwa: mars said he wants 2 marry the dude from his plant class (seriously!! GO. TO. BED)

starmom: that class started literally 2 days ago

hwa: I KNO!!!!! (pls, mom, for the love of everyone around u and also me, get some sleep)

aspen groans and rolls over in his bed, peeling himself away from his sheets and staring groggily at his phone. it’s not unlike mars to get fleeting, would-be crushes on other green witches in his classes. usually he’ll ogle them for a day or two, wax poetic about their ass, and then move on. he’s a tall kid with a heart of goddamn gold, and wears every single emotion he ever owns on his sleeve. it’s caused trouble more than once, but generally he’s pretty good about loving, and realistic expectations, and knowing that you can’t marry a guy you met two days ago. frozen proved that much, if nothing else.

still, he cracks open the door to his room and sidles down the hall and peeks up the stairs. there’s no movement, but something clinks in the kitchen that connects to the living room, and he ambles in that direction, wondering what he’ll find. maybe yonghwa had also been texting cobalt, who is a habitual night owl. maybe cobalt is also in on this intervention thing too. after all, their witch bonds are stronger than most. when one of them feels something too strongly and doesn’t clamp down on it, often times the others will feel it too. and aspen knows that most of them have been feeling pretty ecstatic over the last few days, the stress mitigated by the unbridled adrenaline and raw energy of diving back into classes, into a sea of new faces and old as the new semester cracks open like an eggshell suspended above all of their heads.

what he finds isn’t cobalt hunched over the fridge with three popsicles sticking out of his mouth (a regular occurrence during summer). what he finds is mars draped over the living room couch holding his hand over his forehead dramatically, a spoon hanging from his fingers and a half-empty jar of gelato (his gelato, aspen realizes with a little bit of exasperation), looking like he’s ready to be painted by a young leonardo dicaprio.

“um,” aspen says, “you okay in there, buddy?”

“aspen,” mars says. “can you marry a guy you just met?”

goddamn it. they really do need an intervention.

“no, mars,” aspen says with all the patience of a man who just woke up at 4am because his witch family are being dumbasses. “you can’t marry someone you just met.”

“fuck,” mars says, and sits up. “okay, plan b.”

“plan b?”

“i’m gonna ask him on a date.” mars looks fiercely determined. so determined, in fact, that aspen breaks out into a laugh that threatens to wake cobalt up from his dead slumber upstairs.

“what?!” mars demands, his voice pitching high. “what’s so funny?”

“it’s just,” aspen says. “no, you know what? i’m not even going to say it. okay, so you’re gonna ask - “

“hot greenhouse man,” mars says dreamily.

“you’re gonna ask hot greenhouse man on a date,” aspen says. “cool. and how are you gonna do that?”

mars face drains of all color. because for all of his open-hearted adoration for people, his poetic compliments, his easily obtained sincerity, mars has never asked a person out before in his life. in the realm of dating, he’s as good as useless, and aspen’s gonna let him flounder a bit in the blind, desperate hope that he learns how to swim.

“i’m,” mars says, sputters, and says again, “i’m gonna figure that out. right. now.”

“cool,” aspen says, planning for the inevitability of mars chickening out by the time the sun has risen in the sky. “i’m going back to bed while you do that. wake me up when there’s breakfast being made.”

mars, in fact, wakes him up later on when breakfast is (rather poorly) made.

he also tells him that he knows hot greenhouse mans name courtesy of one of his rather nosy, gossipy friends.

his name is laurel. and aspen is worried he’s going to break mars heart.

***

aspen doesn’t have to worry for long.

the moment he meets laurel, he knows that this is as good as fate crashing into his living room floor and starting a forest fire. laurel has the fucking heart eyes of the century every time mars back is turned, and for all of their early floundering, he’s a good soul with a cute smile and (currently) light blue hair that fluffs up to minty green whenever he gets excited or happy.

however, there is one big problem. the biggest fucking problem in aspens world. something that keeps him up late at night, staring at his ceiling, asking the universe how two people can be so stupid that it’s almost funny for everyone involved except it really isn’t because how is he, the good samaritan stuck between a rock and two love-struck people so dumb about the feelings of the other that they don’t even know how to act, supposed to sleep soundly when he can’t knock the minute amount of sense into his best friends head to do the right thing?

the right thing, of course, being to ask one another on a date.

“three months,” yonghwa says on the phone with him one night. “aspie, it’s been three months and neither of them have asked each other out?”

“i know,” aspen moans, hitting his head against his desk, hands in the air. “i know! they’re both like, oh wow, look at this beautiful friend i made. and then mars waves him out of the house, turns around, and starts screaming because he’s so fucking in love! how can he not just - just ask him out? how is this hard?”

“listen,” yonghwa says, “i’ve seen one whole picture of them together and i don’t think i’ve ever seen someone look at mars the way laurel looks at mars. that guys whipped. and he’s not even gonna ask him out?”

“they’re dense, hwa,” aspen bemoans, lifting his head. “dense as bricks. denser than bricks. it’s like the cauldron gave them all the good looks in the world and then was like, hey you know what? good looks? well then i guess you can’t have any braincells around each other!”

“could you,” yonghwa asks, “could you like, give them a nudge? a push? a kick in the ass? throw them off a cliff.”

“i’ve tried everything,” aspen says, and looks up at his computer screen. yonghwa is bent over, painting his toenails as he speaks, the glittery polish he’s using apparently magically scented with blackberries and vanilla. “i straight up said, now is your chance mars, go ask him out! and he just looked at me like this deer in headlights. what if he says no, he said. what kind of bullshit!”

“useless,” yonghwa says, blowing on his big toe. the enchanted blow dryer aspen had sent him for christmas dances around his head, drying out his recently dyed silver-purple hair. “i wish i was there. i would just do it for them.”

“i wish you were here too,” aspen says, breaking from his complaints to let his words flow with genuine fondness. “i’m excited for when i can finally have you back here for real. i miss you.”

“i miss you too, aspie,” yonghwa says, and smiles up at him through the camera. “it’s only a while longer. and then the whole family will be together.”

“not quite,” aspen grumbles. “laurel should be part of this family. hell, he spends enough time over here that he should be on my chore wheel.”

“ah yes, the chore wheel,” yonghwa says sagely. “you should just add him. maybe they’ll finally get the hint.”

“no,” aspen says. “they’re both fools in love. i really don’t know what to do.”

yonghwa tilts his head thoughtfully.

“maybe,” he says, “they just need to suffer a bit more, and then they’ll figure it all out.”

“maybe,” aspen replies, but he really doesn’t think so, but he pulls all of his blind hope and shoves it into that one, tiny word.

***

one month later, aspen snaps.

it starts on a friday afternoon, when he hears the door bang open and closed, and a wail reaches his room where he’s trying desperately to finish a lit essay while talking with emerson about latin translations and books that he wants to set on fire.

“i gotta go,” aspen says, glancing behind him at his door.

“gotcha,” emerson, “wanna come over and dramatically recite shakespeare with me while i pretend to care about grading these papers?”

“please,” aspen says, “i think i’ll need it.”

“cocoa or tequila?” emerson asks knowingly. “or do you want some sort of bliss tonic? I think we have some leftover from the party.”

“cocoa,” aspen says, “i love you. talk to you later.”

“doors unlocked!” emerson calls after him before he ends the call.

in another life, aspen thinks, he’d ask emerson out on a date. but harper is madly in love with him, and aspen is madly in love with harper, and so he stays out of both of their paths, knowing better than to get in the way of something that could be wonderful for the two of them.

sighing, aspen closes his laptop, stands up, and prepares for the worst.

mars is on the kitchen floor.

aspen fights two spontaneously grown thorn bushes, a snapper plant that descended from the ceiling to eat his hair, and three rows of angry, bushy cactuses that have since surrounded the open dishwasher and its surroundings with all the grace he can muster.

mars doesn’t so much as move or bat an eyelash at him when he comes to stand at his head. he’s face down on the granite, arms splayed out in front of him, and he looks, quite frankly, like he’s just keeled over and died in the middle of the day.

aspen does the nice thing.

he kicks him (gently) in the head.

mars lets out a pathetic cry.

“what happened,” aspen says, and it’s not a question.

the only other time mars poisoned the whole kitchen with toxic plants, it had been because someone had called him a giraffe and he’d cried all the way home. he’d been seventeen at the time.

mars rolls over onto his back and stars up at aspen. he’s on the verge of tears.

“oh my god,” aspen says, crouching down. “baby.”

“aspen,” mars croaks. “i’m a dumb person.”

“oh my god,” aspen says. “no you’re not, mars. tell me what’s wrong.”

he sits down gingerly, ignoring the cactuses around them, and mars scoots up a little so he’s laying with his head in aspens lap as aspen brushes his fingers through the boys hair.

“i really like laurel,” mars says, like it hasn’t been painfully obvious for four months now. “like, really, really like him.”

“yes,” aspen says. “i know.”

“cool,” mars replies, staring glassy eyed at the ceiling. “so today, i go into the greenhouse early because like, i’m planning to give him this cactus i found down at the gardens to laurel, because the needles don’t hurt at all and make little bubbles when you tickle the head.”

“okay,” aspen says.

“and there he is,” mars says, lifting his hands to the ceiling like he’s looking at heaven and laurel is up there somewhere too. “beautiful. haloed in light. perfect. the most amazing guy i’ve ever been blessed with. and he’s getting kissed by some other dude.”

okay, that’s a hold up. laurel? kissing another man?

“are you sure?” aspen asks.

laurel has been madly in love with mars for months. this story doesn’t make any sense.

“yes!” mars exclaims. “like, the cutest fucking gesture and he’s just sitting there, laughing as it happens! and i’m sitting there with this stupid cactus like, oh! that’s why he never asked me out. he must’ve been like, dating this hot dude this entire time and was just taking - what, i don’t know - pity on me or something! i look stupid.”

mars actually wails at this.

“i’m a dumbass!”

aspen frowns.

“no,” he says, leaning down to kiss mars forward. “you’re absolutely not a stupid person, mars. you’re the best, sweetest, greatest person i know. and if that’s really true - which i’m not saying it is - then laurel is missing out on something incredible.”

“but i don’t want him to miss out,” mars says, and sobs.

“i know,” aspen says, immediately planning either murder or the biggest fucking Mom Talk he’s ever going to have in his life. “i know, baby. you’re the best thing i’ve ever had in my life. and you deserve the stars.”

***

the stars hiss at aspen the moment laurel makes it into their front garden, telling him hurriedly that the boy he’s been waiting on to arrive is finally here.

aspen checks his watch.

cool, three hours since mars breakdown.

enough time for aspen to school all of his emotions into neat little lines and prepare for whatever the fuck is about to happen downstairs. as requested, cobalt is diligently distracting mars upstairs with video games and an ongoing call with yonghwa, who’s hollering memes at them while dancing to the ponytail song aggressively.

aspen goes downstairs and opens the door.

laurel is standing on his porch looking wildly out of breath.

“is mars here?” he asks, all of his words blending together into one massive slur.

“amazing,” aspen replies. “you’re both useless.”

laurel freezes.

“um,” he says, very eloquently. which is great, because aspen doesn’t have time for him to go on any sort of ramble that dodges the point. aspen’s nonexistent love life might be a hot garbage fire that he’s given up controlling, but he’s not about to let mars go down in flames over what he hopes and prays is a misunderstanding of cosmic proportions.

“no,” aspen says, shutting laurel’s mouth with an audible click. “nope. don’t talk, laurel. it’s my turn. i get to talk now. mars is upstairs, by the way. my kitchen is a nightmare. and if this conversation doesn’t go right, i’m going to make you clean every single cactus out of my dishwasher before you leave.”

“what?” laurel asks, dumbly.

“listen to me very carefully,” aspen says. “mars likes you a lot. he might even love you, and for mars, that’s a monumental thing. he’s wanted to ask you out since he met you. he’s so far down the rabbit hole of affection for you that i don’t think his heart has room for literally anything else.”

laurel sits there gaping like a fish out of water. jesus christ - had he really been so dumb?

aspen tries to boil down every strand of exasperation in him.

“today,” he says, “even after months of friendship, you kissed someone else in front of him.”

“i - what?”

“don’t ‘i - what’ me, mars was crying on my kitchen floor for two hours because of this,” aspen says. “if you really didn’t notice that he was madly interested in you and you were just wanting to be friends, then i might be able to forgive that when mars recovers. and that’s a big if. but if you were leading him on, thinking it was cute to have him fawn over you while stringing him along, i will personally - “

“waitwaitwait,” laurel says, loudly, holding out his hands. “wait, aspen! please!”

aspen frowns at him, in what he hopes is his best scolding mom stare.

“you have five seconds,” he says, “go.”

“this is a whole, big, wild misunderstanding!” laurel says, so loudly his voice has to carry out through the whole house. “the guy that kissed me was one of my old frat brothers! he was just coming by to say hi! he’s got a girlfriend and a boyfriend for godsake! it was just - just platonic. i don’t feel that way about anyone but mars! i’ve wanted to marry that guy for months now. literally marry him! i’ll even get down on one knee - “

laurel is jumping down onto the ground before aspen can stop him, even as he rushes forward, trying to stop this mess of a man from also destroying his house with blooms of crazy fucking plants. he can already see the dirt around his front yard sifting, little tendrils of greenery poking on through.

“laurel!” aspen says, loudly. “laurel, please - “

“i love him!” laurel shouts. “please, aspen. i really love him! can i see him? i can explain it all, really, i just want to see - “

“laurel?”

aspen turns around.

mars is standing in the hallway, illuminated in the soft gold of the fairy lights floating around the ceiling, swimming like snakes above their heads.

he looks stunned and a little bit awkward, his massive cardigan slouching off of his shoulders, hair a mess, eyes tear-streaked and nose rudolf-red.

“mars,” laurel says, from his kneeling position in front of aspen. “mars.”

he stands up and aspen moves out of the way. laurel crosses the hall to mars and without hesitation, takes mars face in his hands and kisses him hard on the mouth.

aspen feels like he’s part of a korean drama. he thinks he must be at the season finale, because how could anything in his life get more dramatic than this?

“oh my god,” cobalt says from the stairway, holding his phone up and videotaping the entire thing. “they really are useless in love.”

aspen knows he should say something, because the whole hallway is filling with cherry blossoms and red roses, massive lilies and blooming sunflowers. but for a moment, he just sits down hard, and agrees with cobalt’s assessment. mars and laurel are useless in love.

but their love is more gorgeous and brilliant than anything aspen has ever seen before.

and how could something so beautiful be useless at all?

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