☆im bored lol☆

Charlie wakes up with a sore throat and her chest hurting. She throws up some spore buds, and then does the most rational thing in this situation and carves open her chest with a knife to see what's going on in there. She's got a whole cuscuta europaea growing in there, along with white roses and pink hydrangea. Obviously, this is sick as fuck. And also like, not a thing that happens to Hellborn. It's a cursed soul Sinner thing. She's not dating Vaggie anymore. Sooooo, the only possibility for why she's experiencing some kind of horrific soul shenanigans like this, is if she's somehow in love with a different Sinner. AND WHO ELSE COULD IT POSSIBLY BE. Alastor. Like duh, Alastor.

So she's hype and giddy as hell about this physical manifestation of her love. She definitely realized she had a pretty bad crush on Al, but this was basically proof those feelings went DEEP. She goes and kisses Alastor the second she sees him in the morning. Which isn't abnormal, because Alastor is a very touchy-feely person and a passing quick kiss is completely acceptable behavior with him. He complains about his throat hurting, and keeps coughing into his hands which is more than enough proof to her that her feelings are reciprocated because like...wild fucking coincidence otherwise?

Meanwhile: Alastor wakes up and throws up belladonna and red roses. Which is bad. Because feelings are bad and horrifying and only for weak, immature idiots. Alastor immediately goes into panic mode, because he's already gone through this shit before with Vox. And tangled up in the mess of purple barries coming out of throat like wine, was still tiny chunks of columnea hirta and mermaid weed still lodged somewhere in a corner of his lungs from decades ago. Annoying. But another thing he could easily repress and ignore after sufficiently puking all morning. Charlie kisses him, because she's a repressed little freak who never got enough attention as a child and he goes about his day trying not to grab the nearest sharp object and perform a self thoracostomy.

As the days go by, Charlie gets more happy with her developing lungs, and Alastor gets progressively more angry and kinda dying a little.

Eventually, Charlie decides the best thing to do with her new garden, is to show it of!!! To everyone, obviously. Because love is beautiful and is something you should share with everyone. And also Alastor's flowers were super pretty. Even if the prickly one was like less cute spore buds and just...kinda getting tangled in her thoracic walls. Still cute tho.

She immediately removes her skin and folds her musculature of the way so her ribcage is on display. Her heart, lungs, and entire upper torso is practically fully exposed to the air. It hurts a lot, but it's fine and tolerable for what she wants to do. She wears a strapless, lowcut top so her chest is exsposed as much as possible. And keeps straps on her skin that connect on the back of her shirt like a bra, so it doesn't fall and cover her up.

Angel and Husk are, rightfully, a little horrified. But also its Hell. It wasn't uncommon for people to do psycho shit like this, but still, freakkkyy. Angel thinks its a little gaudy and weird. Husk thinks its just flat out gross to be wondering around with exposed organs. (Vaggie has no opinion because I keep forgetting she exists.)

Charlie pouts and insists what she's doing is extremely fucking romantic. Literally the most romantic thing you could do in this situation. Why wear you heart on your sleeve when you can carve it open and wear it like a flower crown? She loves Alastor, so she's going to hold her love for him in her ribcage like a basket, and happily show off all of her feelings like a newlywed with their wedding ring.

Alastor sees this. And obviously, this is Slut™ behavior. Mostly because he's possessive and insane, and has not once considered that Charlie likes him. Charlie going around, basically topless, showing off another man's claim on her, and how omggggg in lovvveeee she is with someone other than him, is horrific social etiquette. It enrages him to no fucking end that he has to be suffering with a bunch of ripe belladonna aspirating him in his sleep, and she gets to parade around like a lovesick whore with whatever newfound relationship she has.

The second he sees her chest, and her garden, he immediately tells her what she's doing is disgusting. Unladylike, gaudy, inappropriate, shameful, literally anything that makes her hate herself enough that she stops making him feel so jealous and angry.

Charlie interprets this as him saying that their relationship is the inappropriate thing. That it's disgusting of her to so readily show off their love to other people like an idiot. That her and Alastor should just be quiet and private about their relationship because he thinks she's something too shameful to publicly admit to having. Alastor's an Overlord, and arguably has more to lose by dating the dumb bimbo princess that either is singing or getting into embarrassing cat fights.

She agrees and promises to cover herself up again. And then goes to her room to cry. Alastor is both very happy with this and absolutely pukes for 5 hours straight over how guilty he feels for making her upset over his selfishness.

Charlie's garden starts to wilt, little by little. She keeps all the flower petals that fall in a jar so she doesn't lose them, even if the feeling is dying. The hydrangea and and roses start to lose life, while the cuscuta europaea gets more and more twisted and brambly. She's less publicly affectionate with Al, since he clearly isn't comfortable with that kind of love language. And she does her best mentally tell herself that he still loved her, even if he was really fucking bad at showing it.

Alastor's garden gets infinitely more hostile until he's coughing up blood and struggling to speak with how badly torn his throat is from vines and thorns. Deadly nightshade is deadly for a reason. This happened last time too. Whatever idiotic feelings in him were so rancid and septic that it starts to kill him before it ever blooms properly. His feelings were too horrific and monstrous to be ever worthy of reciprocation. He carves open his chest, like Charlie did, and instead of a well organized and lush little pocket of flowers, all he gets is a thread of half dead roses that were black with blood and rotten barries that pop like dust. He cracks his ribcage out of place, sticks a knife in his chest, and systematically carves out both of his lungs and chucks them at a wall. If Vox, or Charlie, or anyone else he could never love right was going to move on from him, then he was too even if it meant physical mutilation. His lungs and garden grow back by morning.

At some point Angel and Husk notice that both of their health starts to decline to the extreme. Charlie assures Angel that she's fine and it's just a rough patch that they'll get through together. Alastor informs Husk of how many bones a canary has in its wings and then immediately runs away.

It's super fucking obvious that he's a dumbass. So they follow him to his room and just point blank ask why he's treating Charlie like shit when she's in love with him. Alastor splutters and is baffled by the implication. Because no the fuck she isn't. That's ridiculous.

Angel asks if he's always been this stupid, and Husk reminds him that Alastor didn't even notice that he was in love with him the whole time he's been under contract.

They threaten to kick Alastor's ass if he doesn't stop being the stupidest person on the planet and the realization that he's been emotionally torturing and punishing Charlie for quite literally no reason starts to sink in.

Charlie says in her room most days. She's having trouble walking and breathing at the same time. Hellborn heal slowly and naturally, Nephilim are a little better at it but this was a human affliction, something that affects the core od your Soul. Which is something she didn't even have from the start. She works on her sketchbook or tries to figure out new business plans.

Alastor comes in and asks how her chest is doing since she's been extremely modest lately with her fashion choices.

Charlie assures him that she got his point, and she won't bother him or anyone else with her stupid feelings. He sits down on her bed, and hangs out for about an hour straight before just blurting out "Are you in love with me...?"

She turns around and stares at him like he's a dumbass. Which is he is. And says "Yes???? Yes I'm in love with you????? What the fuck?????"

Alastor starts panicking and rambling about how much he hated this fictional person he made up in his head to hate for taking away her attention and love from him, while his throat closes up with thorns and he tries to rationalize emotional abuse. Charlie punches him in the stomach, making him throw up flowers. And then kisses him and tells him he's stupid and that she's gonna kick his ass for making her feel so awful.

And then something something very serious conversation about Alastor being an ass, and his deep rooted insecurities over relationships in general. And then kissing a lot and swapping flower spores until they have matching gardens and metaphorical pollinated flower babies.

SO FLOWER TIM

I already made the decision forever ago on what flowers were going to symbolically represent Alastor and Charlie.

Alastor is Cuscuta Europaea which is a parasitic plant and an invasive species. I wanted him to be one of those vampire plants that kill the other plants around them, and I really love how pretty and tentacle-y this one is. (It sorta comes up plot wise in my main show lion au that the green magic that carves out parts of Charlie's Hotel and adds pocket dimensions is causing her extreme pain on a magical level since she's connected to Keekee and the Hotel)

And Charlie is Atropa Belladonna, or deadly nightshade. (This is where the Atropa Lio title comes from) I like the symbolism of something mistaken as pretty or less dangerous than it actually is for her given her repressed/hidden demonic nature that she covers up with the rainbows and kitties aesthetic. Ik other people have used more traditionally happy or sunshiney flowers like marigolds or sunflowers or just anything cutesy and girlish. Which I think definitely still works for her, but I wanted something more complicated.

And finally Vox. He gets this sick as fuck flower called Columnea, OR Dancing Dolphin, Shark plant, Goldfish Plant. I needed something for Alastor to throw up to represent his still lingering, and repressed lost romance with Vox. And stumbled onto this fucking adorable ass thing so now thats Vox's whole plant