Work Text:
Normal was overrated, an opinion Valkyrie held close to her heart. Normal was just another word for common, another way of saying ordinary, and who wants to be ordinary when they can be extraordinary ?
Now, Valkyrie was extraordinary, at least compared to most people. Magic kind of put a stop to any kind of normalcy, which of course was entirely to Valkyrie’s liking.
Valkyrie did not want to be normal. This firm belief - this conviction of hers - did nothing to stop her from sometimes feeling a little bit adrift. Some of that may be based on the fact that, despite being a decade older than she looked, she was still - by several decades - the youngest employee of the Irish Sanctuary.
Part of it , she thought cynically to herself (whenever she let herself contemplate things, at least), part of it is probably that somewhere along the line I grew up, and all without those milestones I was ‘supposed’ to have along the way.
It was probably the missing milestones if she were to be honest with herself - something she avoided at great length and as often as she could, but sometimes it was necessary.
The whole milestone thing made a certain amount of sense, at least, especially considering that Valkyrie had a tendency to linger more on her lack of normalcy whenever the youngsters - and didn’t she feel like she’d aged a century the first time she used ‘youngsters’ unironically - prepared themselves for Debs.
Valkyrie didn’t like dancing, she certainly didn’t like large social gatherings, but some tiny part of her felt some kind of regret that she never got to go to a Debs ball. It was the whole thing - getting a gown, a corsage and - hopefully - a date, and then probably not dancing the whole night away, but nonetheless being there.
“You know, there is a ballroom on the first floor,” Skulduggery spoke up from behind her.
Valkyrie would deny to her dying day that she startled badly enough to both shriek and almost jump out of the window she’d been brooding in front of - just as she’d be denying she’d even once considered that what she was doing was ‘brooding’. Skulduggery would, until his dying day, be right beside her to relate the truth (up to and including the exact pitch of her shriek).
“What does the ballroom have to do with anything?” Valkyrie managed to get out, two minutes and several very deep, calming breaths later.
“I’m just saying,” said Skulduggery and shrugged, the kind of elegant slouch in his every gesture that she would envy if she hadn’t become accustomed to it. “If you want to have a ball, you do have the space for it.”
“Why would I want to have a ball? There’s absolutely no reason for me to either host nor want to attend a ball,” she answered, very carefully not meeting his gaze. In fact, she was so carefully not meeting his gaze that she wasn’t even looking at him.
“You’re so deep in denial you should be speaking Egyptian,” Skulduggery scoffed. Valkyrie spun on her heel to gape at him, too shocked to even pretend at offence.
“Denial?” Her voice cracked embarrassingly at the word, and had Skulduggery had his facade activated she knew he would have raised a sardonic eyebrow at her. Rather than continuing to defend herself - or deny what he was saying - she stomped out of the room, shouldering past him on her way through the door. Skulduggery didn’t bother to do more than sway with the motion, raising his eyes to the ceiling and heaving a deep sigh.
“How long past teenhood do teenage hormones and tantrums last, exactly?” he muttered to himself, before turning to head out after his recalcitrant partner.
He had expected to find her in the kitchen, doctoring a cup of tea to her liking, but while he found the kettle still hot he did not find his partner anywhere in the vicinity. Clearly, he had been muttering disparagingly about her for long enough that she had time to disappear.
If asked, what led to Skulduggery finding Valkyrie was his impeccable reasoning, sound deductions from a sharp mind, and the fact that he knew her like he knew himself.
The truth was that he heard music from the old ballroom, and there weren’t many other places for her to be.
The doors to the ballroom stood slightly ajar, letting the strains of Tchaikovsky meander out through the hallways. Skulduggery took a deep breath before pushing one of the doors open, stepping through to see Valkyrie standing by Gordon’s old Victor V phonograph - it was Valkyrie’s now, of course, but for some reason, the phonograph would always bring Gordon more to mind than anything else.
The ballroom was dusty, what furniture there was covered in white sheets, the chandelier covered in spider webs - but it was nevertheless the kind of room that screamed opulence, and brought to mind lavish parties of bygone times.
“I don’t mind the missing out I’ve done - the things I’ve experienced second-hand via reflection, or the things I just simply didn’t experience, period,” Valkyrie said musingly, not turning away from the phonograph to face him. He stood still, not wanting to break the spell that had fallen over the ballroom, not seeing the need to prompt her to continue. She took another sip from the teacup she held before she kept speaking. “I just - I don’t fit in, you know? I’m far removed from the people incapable of magic - because I have magic, I don’t age, the reasons are many - and just the same, I don’t fit in at the Sanctuary, do I?”
“...do you want to fit in?” he dared to ask, not certain what the reception would be. “We are the best team, our rate of solved cases is unbeatable, and frankly - your partner is a walking, talking skeleton. I do not fit in, either.”
“No, I guess I don’t - not really.” Skulduggery walked up to stand next to her, one gloved hand reaching for the records and flicking through them - she didn’t seem to see him, not even notice that he was there more than to answer his questions. She merely stared off into the distance, taking a sip from her tea ever so often. “But sometimes I wonder - what was it like, all those experiences I didn’t get?”
Skulduggery didn’t answer, merely lifting the needle from the record, cutting the Tchaikovsky short in favour of replacing the record with another. Putting the needle down, The Blue Danube rang out into the ballroom.
“May I have this dance?” he asked, reaching his hand out to her. She startled slightly, seemingly waking from a trance, and he was surprised to see a faint blush rise in her cheeks.
“I can’t - I don’t dance, Skulduggery,” Valkyrie rebuffed, self-consciously smoothing a hand down her shirt, the other hand keeping a convulsive grip on her teacup.
“Come on - I will lead, it’s just turning in place. Let me have this dance.” Once again he reached his hand out to her, and she flushed a mite darker still. Nevertheless, despite her reluctance, she huffed and put her teacup down before reaching out to take his outstretched hand.
He pulled her into his arms, not surprised to find her tenser than a bowstring even as her other hand came to rest on his shoulder.
“Relax and - one two three, one two three,” he said, leading her carefully into the basic waltz, stepping in time to Strauss.
She relaxed, second by second, and suddenly he realised she had her head resting on his shoulder, following his lead through the waltz seamlessly.
“It’s not a Debs ball, but it is a waltz in a ballroom,” he said, sotto voce. When she snorted in reply, he felt her breath on his neck, and that was something he very carefully did not think about.
“It’s perfect, especially as a cure for my moping,” she said, leaning back slightly to be able to look into his eyes, hopefully conveying her gratitude better than words ever could.
They kept dancing in the empty ballroom, not speaking, stopping merely to switch records when one ended.
Somehow, Valkyrie felt that a proper ball would have had nothing on the evening she spent in the arms of her partner.