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Val was very busy, probably fighting criminals, when the phone rang, which of course was the reason for her being so out of breath when she answered. So she’d claim, anyway, if anyone asked. She had not been dancing in the kitchen of Gordon’s manor, going all in to Dancing On My Own , and she would stick to that story.
“Hi honey!” her mother’s voice rang out from the phone once Val had managed to localise it, pick up and pant out a greeting. “Terribly sorry to do this, dear, but could you watch Alice tonight? We’re going out with Beryl and Fergus and the babysitter just called, she’s down with the flu.” Val pulled the phone away from her face to stare at it incredulously. Had she heard that right?
“...yeah, mum, absolutely,” she said finally, still in shock. “Just. Beryl and Fergus?”
“Oh, thank you so much! We’ll drop her off at yours when we leave, is that fine?” Her mum paused for a second before drawing a deep breath. “They said something about celebrating and I didn’t think we could refuse them.”
“You’re too nice, mum. But yeah, absolutely, just drop her off here, that’ll be awesome.” Val hung up, still in shock. After taking a quick look around she realised that yes, she did need to clean up at least some of the clutter before both her parents and her little sister arrived. If nothing else, she really didn’t need to have most of her weaponry arranged on the dining table. Melissa always looked so disapproving - all while trying to accept her as wholly as possible. It made for a slightly constipated look, and one Val preferred to not see more than absolutely necessary.
Val got so sucked into the whirlwind of being a cleaning storm, she didn’t much notice time passing, at least not until her mum rang the doorbell.
“Oh hi mum!” Val called as she opened the door, only mildly caught off-guard by Alice throwing herself at her. Looking down at the dark head buried in her stomach, Val could only laugh as her baby sister started babbling and showed no sign of stopping, disregarding the human need for breathing. “Hiya Alice, excited to be here tonight? Oh! Hi dad!”
Her father smiled at her, close-lipped and more than slightly dead-eyed.
“Hi dear, couldn’t you have been busy tonight, how are things?” Desmond said in a monotone. Val couldn’t help but laugh.
“Sorry dad, can’t help it - I want to spend time with Alice more than you don’t want to spend time with Beryl and Fergus,” she shrugged, grinning widely at her father. Her father glared playfully at her, grumbling under his breath.
It wasn’t the first time they left Alice with Val, but it was the first time they weren’t just an easy phone call away if anything did happen.
Everything would be fine, everyone was agreed on, except they all were worried. Well, probably not Desmond, but he didn’t worry about much other than the dinner he was having with his brother and sister-in-law.
Waving their parents off, Val waited until they had disappeared behind the first bend to turn to Alice.
“Want cookies for dessert, Alice?” Looking down into the blue eyes that didn’t seem to come from either side of the family, Val wasn’t at all surprised to see them light up.
They had pancakes for dinner, which Valkyrie knew Melissa would claim was also dessert, or at best breakfast, before curling up on the couch with a glass of milk and a plate of cookies each. Val held the decided opinion that she, as the big sister, needed to spoil her sister a little bit extra. Knowing her parents as well as she did, she knew Alice was already spoiled by them, but what kid has been hurt by pancakes and cookies for dinner just the once.
They were in the midst of a Dora the Explorer episode when someone started talking behind them.
“And I thought you’d be resting, this your evening off, Valkyrie,” the deep, smooth voice of her partner came from behind the couch. Alice spun around where she was sitting, rising to her knees and hanging over the back of the couch, while Val remained where she was, taking another bite of the cookie in her hand in response. “But here I find you, solving crimes, yet again.”
“Who’re you? What’re you doing here? How do you know Val? I’m Alice and Val’s my sister!” Alice rambled without stopping for breath, chin on her hands, arms crossed on the back of the couch. “There’s Dora on the telly want to watch with us? Do you want a cookie? You can have one from Val!”
“Hey now, don’t you go giving away my cookies, you little monster!” Val laughed, catching Alice around the middle and dragging her down into the couch for an impromptu tickle fight. When Val let her sister up again, it was to find her partner sitting on the far end of the couch, well outside of her reach. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Well, Ghastly and Tanith were apparently having a date night, the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard, and didn’t want me there, which I think is very discriminatory of them, really,” he answered, facade quirking a small grin her way.
“So you thought you’d drop by unannounced? What if I had had company, did you think about that?” Val said, snorting. “I’m not surprised they didn’t want you there, you’re a third wheel even if you’re alone.”
“Hey now,” he replied, hand to his chest, acting offended. “I’ll have you know I am a delight .”
“A delight to see you leave, yes,” she laughed in return, preparing to continue when Alice pulled at her sleeve, dragging her down to whisper in her ear. Alice, being five years old, didn’t quite know how to regulate her volume, however, and had there been anyone in the kitchen they probably would’ve heard her.
“Vaaaal! Who is he!!” Alice ‘whispered’, and Val could feel the couch start to tremble as Skulduggery desperately tried not to laugh.
“He’s the guy I work with, I told you about Skulduggery, right?” she said, valiantly attempting to ignore him.
“The smug idiot?” Alice said in return, still using the same ‘whisper’, turning big, innocent eyes onto her sister. Valkyrie, in turn, was very aware of Skulduggery choking on air at the other end of the couch.
Humming noncommittally, Val managed to turn Alice’s attention to the tv again. The episode of Dora was barely over before Alice was asleep, and while Val usually would have been rather pleased, it wasn’t quite as great when Skulduggery was here, and they both knew full well what Alice had said.
“Smug idiot?” he said, smugly. Not for the first time she cursed the fact that he was a skeleton, because she would sometimes very much like to wring his neck. When she told him as much, all delivered in a monotone, things were not helped by him laughing at her in return.
“How come she’s here?” he said softly after a while, the two of them deeply engrossed in a children’s show while the child in question was just as deeply asleep.
“Mum and dad had a dinner with Beryl and Fergus? To dad’s great consternation I had the evening off and could take her when the babysitter called out sick.” Val stroked a hand down her sister’s hair, unable to stop herself. She loved her sister, loved all kids really, even if she’d resigned herself to never having any.
It didn’t take very long before Melissa and Desmond came to pick Alice up. Val wasn’t very surprised since neither of her parents was very fond of her aunt and uncle. In return, Desmond and Melissa weren’t surprised to see Skulduggery opening the door to let them in. Valkyrie was busy trying to wrestle her limpet sister off of her. Alice had no intention of waking up in order to go home, so instead Val just opted to hand the still mostly asleep child off to her parents.
Once they had left Valkyrie leant against the door she’d just closed, taking a deep breath and then releasing it very slowly.
“It’s weird, we didn’t do much, but geez am I tired just from this time with Alice?” she finally said, opening her eyes to look at Skulduggery. He’d deactivated the facade, and even if she would never admit it out loud, she did prefer him without it.
“Kids are like that,” Skulduggery said, shrugging bony shoulders. He followed a bit behind her, mostly to avoid also having to clean up after Hurricane Alice. “They’ll tire you out rather quickly. You’ll find out, you’ll see.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Valkyrie replied, barking a laugh. She set about putting the couch to order - not because she had an immense need for a nice and orderly home, but mostly because if she came home in shambles it was nice to collapse in a couch with all the cushions in the right order.
“Well, I mean,” he stammered in return, standing straight up from where he’d been propping up the doorjamb. She turned to look at him, putting her hands on her hips and raising an eyebrow, waiting for whatever weird idea he’d had now. “I know young people sometimes wants to, well, have their own and parental leave, and all that.” He nodded decisively, as if what he’d just said was the end all be all of the conversation.
“What,” she said, glaring at him. “Exactly, is that supposed to mean?”
He looked away from her, as much as a skeleton could look away from anyone, muttering something inaudible. It was probably for the best that she didn’t hear what he said, because she probably would’ve been even more enraged than she already was.
“Skulduggery. I swear, I’m not preparing to have children in the immediate future, and I’m actually not planning on having children any time soon at all.” She shrugged, turning away from him. Lowering her voice, all so he wouldn’t hear, she couldn’t help but continue the train of thought anyway. “Not like the man I’d want children with wants them with me, anyway.”
She wasn’t prepared for him to be as close as he was, however, but it was probably her surprise that let him turn her around with the grip he had on her shoulder, and the fact that she was entirely comfortable with him that meant he didn’t lose the hand.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Is anyone dumb enough to not be interested in you?” he asked, voice that intense and quiet it always went when he was angry , rather than just annoyed.
It rubbed her the wrong way this time, instead of the very right way it usually did. Maybe she had tired of him playing dumb, because by now it must be that; she’d been in love with him for so long the only way he’d been able to not notice it was if he was willfully ignoring it.
“I don’t know, Skulduggery. How dumb are you?” she said, gleaning some amount of mean satisfaction from the way his jaw dropped at her words. She tore herself from his grip, silently mourning what would likely be the last time he touched her, and walked towards the kitchen.
She’d only just crossed the threshold when he grabbed her shoulder again and turned her around. She’d just opened her mouth to ask what on Earth he was doing when he kissed her. Somewhere between the living room and the kitchen he’d reactivated the facade, and there were genuine lips she was kissing.
And boy, did he know how to kiss.
It was a deep, possessive kiss, sweet and just a little bit dirty. When she couldn’t help herself and moaned, he took the initiative to deepen the kiss, and she was suddenly very thankful of the grip she had on his shoulders as her knees buckled.
“Don’t you ever think, Valkyrie,” he said, voice low and intense, looking into her eyes. “Don’t you ever think I don’t love you.”
She smiled at him, and they would both forever deny that either of them were in any way tearful. The look in his eyes when she unbuttoned the first two buttons on his shirt, hand sneaking in to thumb the little rune for the facade; she could still see the look projected in his posture, in the way he tilted his head. She could even feel it in the way his thumb stroked back and forth over her shoulder. He was deeply worried, afraid he’d misread the situation in any way.
“I’ve loved you for so long I don’t know who I am without you,” she finally said, kissing his teeth softly before burying her head in his shoulder. The two of them stood there, embracing, on the kitchen floor for a very long time, before either of them felt ready to move.