Work Text:
Alastor’s rooms in the new hotel lacked a certain charm, even if they looked fairly similar to his old ones, so he took it in himself to make them look more lively. Charlie looks around, clutching the stack of papers against her chest, taking note of the changes and trying to pretend she’s not vibrating in glee. There was a moment in there, where the poor darling thought he was to ditch them.
“Oh! These flowers are beautiful.” Charlie says, sitting down on one of the arm chairs facing each other, a center table between them and reaching a hand to said flowers.
Alastor doesn’t have the time to warn her off before she’s making contact, fingers against the crimson-red petals producing a blink-and-you-miss-it white flash before there’s a sound like a whip hitting on air, an electric discharge. She yelps. Well.
“You can’t go around touching unknown objects, dear.” He says, taking the stack of papers from Charlie and placing them on the table. “Even if they look inoffensive.”
She rubs her hand and laughs, chastised. “Yeah, I’m sorry.”
“No harm done!” He exclaims, sitting down on the opposite chair. “They know how to defend themselves.”
Alastor looks at them, six flowers that act as the hellish equivalent of a rose, three red-crimson and three a bright magenta, black thorns sprouting from an equally black stem, a streak of neon blue along them, disrupting the palette. It fits, regardless.
“I thought you didn’t like flowers.” Charlie says, still looking at them in curiosity, but keeping her hands firmly in her lap.
“Oh, no. I’m afraid it’s the opposite.” He retorts, opening his arms and gesturing at himself. “They don’t like me.”
He usually doesn’t leave them in the open, staying at the back of his bayou, with the rest of the trinkets he doesn’t want curious eyes on, but, well, a bit of red on black on blue was the last touch his rooms needed to look complete. And it’s always fun to watch people electrocute themselves in their curiosity. Nifty knows to leave them well alone, but if she wants a bit of a zip now and then, he won’t be the one to dissuade her. She can have her fun, too.
“You know of my– magic touch, of sorts, with flora, hah!“ Alastor continues, leaning over and taking one of the flowers in his hands. “These ones don’t wither when I touch them.”
Red-crimson and bright magenta, black stem and black thorns, blue neon scattered like blood in some of the petals; painfully pulled out, painfully created. Such a beauty born out of pain, born out of a person's understanding of love and a person’s understanding of rejection. What a curious concept.
Alastor caresses the petals and just as he said, they don’t wither and die in his hands. It will never stop being a novel experience.
Charlie beams. “Where did you get them? Maybe we could get some for the garden.”
Alastor laughs, imagining how that particular endeavor would pan out.
“No, no. I’m afraid the source was rather limited and it doesn’t produce more, at least to my knowledge.”
He could, he could not. Vox’s obsession is the same as it always has been, as told by his breakdown on air and the cameras following him when he allows them. Alastor’s smile turns sharper, his hold on the flower softer, it’s been a while since direct confrontation and he doesn’t know the parameters of an alignment as subjective as this one.
Then he says, just as Charlie is preparing herself to ask: “An old friend gave them to me, a long time ago.”
And here they are; protected from the pass of time, protected by his deadly touch, what a juxtaposition. He so dearly loves contradictions.
“Ohh, that’s so nice!” She says, clutching her hands together, just shy of forming hearts with her eyes. “And some of them are the exact shade of your hair!”
Protected from everyone’s hands but Alastor’s, by modifications he didn’t ask for. Vox’s always been so eager for approval, so eager for anything. Always asking for more and more and–
A gift from before he toppled over by the weight of his own greed.
Alastor’s smile widens, cutting like broken glass. “That they are.”
He returns the flower to the vase, completing the set of six again and he can’t help but think they are a pretty lie. Deceit in the form of a pitiful last ditch.
And even like that, they are still beautiful.
“Now, about those protection shields,” Alastor says, tearing his eyes away from them. “I have a few ideas in mind–