Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Welcome”

The word echoed in Valkyrie’s head as she felt the ground beneath her knees again. She blinked and as it went dark for a small fragment of a second, worried that, when she opened her eyes again, there would be nothing once more.

But it wasn’t. Turning her head, she could see Roarhaven, could see the sun up there in the sky, as if the star hadn’t just disappeared. Having, just like that, been reduced to nothing.

Valkyrie let her hand run over the concrete of the roof. It was rough but warm. Had she expected it to be cold? For her hand to move through the ground as if it was just an illusion?

Was this even real? Or was Valkyrie stuck in a dream? The world had ended; she was sure of it.

No matter if Darquise had been able to stop Obsidian, somehow redoing all what he had damaged, recreating the world even, Valkyrie was there. Alive. And with her, everything else had returned. So, she could only assume.

Pushing the existential question of existence aside, Valkyrie slowly stood up. She could hear someone cough to her left. Sebastian, no Omen, was lying on the ground. The same as he had been before the world ended. Before he had died, reduced to nothing by what was once his brother.

He still needed a haircut, a shaven beard and a lot of vitamin D but at least he wasn’t coughing up blood anymore. That was a start.

“Valkyrie?” She could hear Skulduggery behind her. He sounded confused, maybe a bit concerned. Valkyrie didn’t notice anything unusual about it. 

What she did notice was the man that stood there as she turned her head. He seemed a bit out of it. Awkward? Confused? Valkyrie didn’t know how to describe it. She had expected to see Skulduggery behind her. Was he somewhere else? Directly behind this guy? Had she imagined his voice? Was he still there?

Before the thought could grow any bigger, she pushed it away. If she had made it back, he must have too.   

Just now did she notice the man’s clothes. He wore a suit. High quality, in a simple black with a dark blue tie. Navy blue. It was Skulduggery’s suit. It almost fit him.

No, Valkyrie thought, the clothes were too small. It did not fit him. They weren’t made for him. The man was looking down, not at the floor but at his hands. He was not wearing the gloves Skulduggery would have worn with his suit. She would have punched him, for the soul reason that he was wearing Skulduggery’s suit. But right now everything was too much, her brain was still trying to get over what had just happened.

Instead, she looked him up and down.  

He looked like he was in his mid-thirties. His hair was just as blonde as Tanith’s and even curlier. His face was covered in freckles, just like his hands that he was staring at.

She didn’t recognize him. Valkyrie had never seen this person in her life.

Before she could say anything, he spoke again. He really did sound like Skulduggery, Valkyrie expected him to step out behind the man. But he didn’t and then an idea came to mind. 

“Skulduggery?”

“Yes?” The man’s head jerked up as he looked back at her. Skulduggery’s tone made her think that he had already figured out what was wrong.

“The world just ended.”

She could have said anything, anything but the obvious. She just didn’t know how to start otherwise.

“It did.”  

“And now we’re back.”

“We are.” The man’s head moved to one side. The way Skulduggery did so often. Brown eyes looked at her. Those weren’t his. He had none.

“And you’re stuck in someone else’s body.”

He didn’t respond directly. Those brown eyes looked away for a moment the way someone would when they were unsure of something.

“It appears as such, Valkyrie.”

“You do remember how breathing works?” The last thing Valkyrie needed was a hyperventilating Skulduggery, not again.

He nodded, not even acknowledging the sarcasm in her voice. Instead, he glanced back down at, what were for now, his hands again. At least this version looked better than the security guard Skulduggery had used as a temporary home before they had got his bones back. Way better.

The how and why, he was stuck in a ‘living’ human form was another question. But it didn’t matter as much for now, in Valkyries opinion.

Before she could wonder any longer about these questions she saw someone move from the corner of her eye.

Omen woke up and for a second Valkyrie could see the terror in his face, the realization of what had happened, that their plan had failed and the fact that the world was going to end. Then he stood up, staggered a few steps forward and Valkyrie moved to catch him.

“Oh.”

A shacky smile stole itself across Omens face.

“And I thought our plan wouldn’t work.”

They went back down to Destriers lab, the celling Valkyrie had destroyed was back. That was a good sign, right? Had Darquise not only restored what Obsidian had destroyed?

Valkyrie could see Omen staring at Skulduggery.

“Why did that happen, again?”

“I don’t know.”

The lab was weirdly empty.

“Is he going to be stuck like this or- “

She could have sworn that a few dead bodies had been laying around here.

“Let’s hope not. I can’t look at Skulduggery seriously when he is wearing someone else’s face.”

A noise from the other room made Valkyrie stop. Omen and Skulduggery had also noticed but she was the closest to the door.

Her left hand was buzzing with lightning while her right was stretched out to open the door. Maybe one of the zeros was still alive. Or worse. She didn’t intend on getting shot right after the world had ended.

She thew open the door. “Destrier?!”

Destrier stood on the other side of the door, looking a bit startled. More than usual.

“I..ah.”

“You got shot.” Valkyrie still held the door open, the lighting in her hand started to die down.

“I did.”

“You died.” Omen had stepped beside her, his eyes full of confusion. Maybe even a bit of fear. He had seen Destrier die. For Valkyrie and Skulduggery, it had been less than an hour, for Omen it had been over two years since he had seen him die today.

“If you put it that way…Yes. Yes, I did.” 

Destriers eyes searched across his laboratory. “And. Did my ‘time travel machine’ work?” It must have been a rhetorical question because a moment after he had asked it Destrier already answered it himself.

“By the looks of Omen here, it did.”

Valkyrie had expected him to sound a bit happier about the fact that his ‘machine’, well it was more a suit than anything else, had worked.

“Yeah, it did work.” Maybe it was still the shock that made him so unemotional, the fact that he had just died and come back to life so unexpectedly.

Maybe this was also why her own voice sounded so shallow. “But the world still ended anyway.”

“Darquise didn’t exactly stop Obsidian. I think she just recreated what he destroyed.”

She herself still couldn’t grasp it. Even less put it into words.

“Oh. I suppose that’s good then?”

Destrier walked over to his desk, pulling a chair out from underneath.

“And I guess Darquise didn’t just bring me back because she liked me so much. Could it have been that other people that died right before…before Obsidian deleted everything where also brought back?”

Valkyrie couldn’t really tell if he was still talking to her or if the scientist was having a conversation with himself. It happened to the best of them.

“By the way, where is Skulduggery? You can’t tell me he wasn’t brought back with you.”

Skulduggery had been relatively quiet for all Valkyrie could tell. It was unusual for him; he was probably still getting used to having an actual body. Again.

Destrier for his part properly ignored the man standing beside Omen. He could have also just not noticed him, regardless, Valkyrie pointed out that this was in fact Skulduggery.

Before he could say anything, Skulduggery turned to him, one hand on his hip. He looked more confident than he sounded.

“Say Destrier, you don’t happen to have a mirror somewhere?”

He probably wanted to know what he looked like. She thought. To see who’s face he was wearing.

“Ah yeah, just upstairs in the bathroom.”

With that Skulduggery was already up the stairs and Destrier did not say another word until he was out of his view.

“Why did that happen? I mean he didn’t look like that prior to the world ending right?”

“No.” She shrugged. Valkyrie couldn’t explain it herself. Neither could she just go and ask Darquise?

“Maybe Darquise just made a mistake.” Destrier turned his attention back to Omen.  

“So, you’re saying that Darquise made such a simple mistake while recreating the entire universe?”

“I don’t know, recreating the universe sounds hard to me.”

Destrier didn’t seem happy with that answer at all, he more so began to sound as if he was on the verge of a breakdown. Probably asking himself the wonderful question of how many more ‘mistakes’ Darquise could have possibly made. Valkyrie let him be and walked over to the closest window.

The world outside was quiet but more importantly, it was still there. This could have been just a way to assure herself, Valkyrie was aware of that, as she glanced out the window.

The sky was clear and blue and still there. There were no faceless ones and no nothingness. She could even make out the contrails of an airplane that had made its way across.

No clouds of smoke that filled the air from burning buildings, no more panic and no more people she could see out in the streets, yelling about the end-times. At least not more than usual.

A tap on the shoulder brought her out of her thoughts and back into the real, existing, world. Destrier stood behind her, he looked like he had calmed down a bit. She couldn’t see Omen anywhere.

He’d already left. Destrier explained. “I tried to tell him to at least shave his beard or cut his hair or maybe even take a shower before he goes looking for his family, but he didn’t want to hear any of it.”

“And Skulduggery?” A short look around told Valkyrie that he wasn’t there either.

Destrier shrugged. “I guess he’s still upstairs. I don’t know. Maybe you should look after him?”

She wasn’t really keen on walking in on Skulduggery while he was in the bathroom.  Still, she took the staircase and knocked on the bathroom door.

“Skulduggery?”

A moment later he answered.

“Yes?”

“It’s been like- “Valkyrie turned trying to find a working clock. It didn’t help her much since she had no idea what time it had been when he had left in search of a mirror.

“It’s been like ten minutes.”

You could never go wrong with that.

“Have you forgotten how to open a door?” She took the risk and opened the unlocked door. Did Destrier’s bathroom even have a lock in the first place? He lived alone after all.

Skulduggery stood there, eyes that didn’t belong to him fixed on the mirror. If Valkyrie could have guessed, she would have said that he had been standing there, slightly hunched over, staring at the mirror, for the entire time.

His gaze shifted to Valkyrie for just a second as she opened the door.  He did notice her. Lovely.

Valkyrie had expected some kind of reaction but instead Skulduggery stayed silent.

She waited a moment or two before speaking up again, the entire time she noticed that he hadn’t blinked. Why should he?

Skulduggery did not have eyelids, and he didn’t have eyes that required blinking or could run dry. Well, now he had, and it was becoming apparent that he hadn’t blinked in a while.

“Hello?” Valkyrie wouldn’t have said it to Skulduggery’s face, but she wasn’t a fan of his new appearance. It didn’t look bad, far from it. She just didn’t like how he acted because of it. Still, she was probably the last person that could complain, after what had happened in the last few months, about other people acting not like themselves.

He turned abruptly to her. Eyes no longer fixed on his reflection.

“Oh Valkyrie, I didn’t hear you.”

Skulduggery sounded honestly confused, it just looked a bit weird compared to his face. It was still a mask of complete apathy.

“Yes, you did. You looked directly at me when I opened the door.”

“Well did you knock? I thought all the time spend with me would help you learn some manners.”

“What? You never knock. Usually, you use a window or break down the door to enter.”

Those brown eyes finally didn’t look into the mirror anymore but at her.

“Breaking down a door is a form of aggressive knocking. I thought you knew that by now.”

She didn’t respond to that, instead she had to stop herself from smiling and rolled her eyes. He was changing the subject.

“Are you done with your sightseeing?”

Skulduggery nodded only glancing swiftly back at his reflection in the mirror as they left.

They didn’t see Destrier as they left his house, maybe he had left to search for others, like Omen. He could have also gone up to the roof, looking for the plague doctor outfit.

“What were you even doing in Destrier’s bathroom the entire time?” She didn’t want to ask but the silence was slowly driving her insane.   

Skulduggery was oddly quiet as they walked down the streets. People were slowly coming out of their houses. There were even some who were just laying around on the street. As if they were dead.

“What can be that interesting about this body for you to stare in the mirror like some movie character at the verge of a mental breakdown.”

They were all alive, she had checked. Alive but unconscious.

“Who do think it belongs to anyway?” The mental image of someone suddenly waking up without a body seemed both terrifying and funny to Valkyrie. Even if this was not how it worked. The consciousness of whoever, was still there. Now, just trapped in the subconscious.

“I don’t think this body belongs to anyone.”

Valkyrie could hear someone crying. With time more and more people stepped outside. No longer barricaded in their houses. Deadly afraid.

Some were crying or hugging each other, confusion and relief alike on their faces. The end of the world was nothing for the faint of heart. Valkyrie doubted that it was for anyone.

“What do you mean by that? There can’t just be some body lying around.”

Skulduggery caught up to her. His face still didn’t display any emotion. It was probably a big change, now being able to show emotion again so easily.

“It doesn’t even make sense. Why would Darquise put you in someone’s random body. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this guy around.”

She motioned at Skulduggery who was now walking quietly beside her.

He seemed to hesitate for a moment.

“Darquise didn’t make the mistake of putting me in someone else body. There is no one else in my mind. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe not.”

He shrugged and Valkyrie could have sworn to see something like contentment on his face.

“I never talked about how I looked like did I?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Yes, you did. You brag about your looks all the time. Even thought at least half of your looks can be credited to your clothes.”

“That can be attributed back to my great sense of style then.”

This time Valkyrie couldn’t hide her grin. “But seriously what is it you’re getting at?”

“Darquise didn’t make a mistake like you think. This isn’t someone’s body she accidentally stuffed my concerns into. As much as I can guess she simply brought me, brought us all back, but put me in the wrong version of myself.

Valkyrie looked back at Skulduggery.

“This is my body. It’s whatI used to look like before I died.”

Chapter Text

This was Skulduggery?

Valkyrie didn’t know what to think about his appearance. It made sense, she supposed. Of course, she had speculated and tried to imagen how her skeletal friend looked like when he still had flesh and skin. After she had met his remaining family, she could have made herself a clearer picture, but back then she had more important things to do than wonder about that.

And simply asking him, even though it had been tempting, seemed rude. Skulduggery had never talked much about his past and even less about how he had lived when he had been…well, alive.

Destrier hadn’t been the only one brought back by Darquise. Everything Obsidian had erased was back. At least Valkyrie could say that about Roarhaven. The destruction, the people that had died whilst fighting or hiding from the monsters were also alive again. Though they looked somewhat shaken. Collectively traumatized. It sounded awful but it was true.

No one had asked who the man on Valkyrie side was. All the people they passed were way too busy with themselves to care.   

Skulduggery seemed a bit less secure and nonchalant than he usually appeared. She could have just chalked it up to the fact that the world had ended. But even after such events he normally acted all confident and unaffected. Now he seemed distant, he hadn’t made a smart remake or said a joke in over thirty minutes, which was quite worrisome. She also noticed how he glanced at his reflection every time he got the chance.

Valkyrie couldn’t say that she had paid much attention to it before, not even when Skulduggery had a façade had he looked at himself that often. Maybe it was something she had just never caught. There was also the possibility that he was just bad at hiding his glances, now that he had real eyes again.

They were slowly making their way to the high Sanctuary. She didn’t really know what to expect. The Sanctuary was pretty empty; Valkyrie only spotted a few people inside that looked like they knew what they were doing. Most were outside trying to understand what just happened or wanting to connect with loved ones, to make sure they were also alright. She didn’t hold it against them.

For a second her mind wandered to her parents again, her sister and her girlfriend. Where they alright?

She wanted to call, make sure that they were still here, she stopped herself though. Her hand was still hovering over her pocket. There was enough time later to call, she told herself.

Was she afraid that no one would pick up? That this thought, this fear that had slowly grown in her mind was true? That maybe, just maybe, her family didn’t make it.  

Then her phone rang, she glanced at Skulduggery who nodded, her hand already closed around it.   

When Valkyrie came back not a minute later, Skulduggery was still there, turning his attention to her and away from his fingernails that he had been staring at.

“I guess that call wasn’t from your family?”

Valkyrie only shook her head. Her phone once again in her pocket.

“Who was it then?”

She was already walking again, leaving the empty hallway behind. Skulduggery was right behind her.

“It came from here. From a healer. They said they found Ghastly.”

“Do you really think it’s him?”

As they walked through the corridors of the Sanctuary, Valkyrie turned to Skulduggery. He had been relatively quiet the entire way even after she had told him about Ghastly.

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

His face still displayed almost no emotion, either Skulduggery was still figuring out how to express them and failing miserably or he was actively trying to show none.   

It made no sense.

Valkyrie was glad, she would be more than happy to have Ghastly back, but it made no sense. Less than anything else that had currently happened. He had died years ago. Obsidian hadn’t even existed.

Valkyrie looked at Skulduggery. Should she ask how he felt? Not only about the possibility that his friend was back. More so how, if it really was Ghastly, he would react. How Skulduggery would explain the fact that he was alive. It wasn’t as if he could hide it from someone like Ghastly.  

The medical wing seemed like the best place to look, so Valkyrie had decided. It was a healer who had called her after all.

Most of it was empty and she would have almost turned around, telling Skulduggery that they had to look somewhere else, as she heard something.

Far back, at the end of the room, two people were talking. She walked closer, one looked to be a healer working here and the other man-

“Ghastly?”

“Valkyrie?”

The other man stood up from the chair he had sat in, to the dismay of the healer, which he promptly ignored.

Ghastly Bespoke looked just the way he had when Valkyrie saw him last. He wore the same clothes too. It hit her like a truck as she realized how long it had actually been. How long she hadn’t thought of him.

Valkyrie was never someone who grieved a lot, at least she appeared so on the outside. Until the age of twelve there hadn’t been a lot of reasons for her to grief. Afterwards there were too many to count.

“You’ve grown a lot, haven’t you?” Ghastly tried a smile, he still looked a bit pale. He still looked a bit out of place. Awkward, as they stood there, face to face.

She only nodded; her voice had seemingly given up on her. She wouldn’t just start crying, Ghastly was alive not dead. So why couldn’t she just say how grateful she was? Couldn’t just be happy and fine.

She must have made it a bit too obvious that she was going to start crying, since with a sign, Ghastly sent the healer, Whelver could have been his name, out of the room.

“So did I miss anything to important?” He offered her his seat and Valkyrie tried her best not to let her emotions get the better of her. She was actively failing.

A moment she thought about it. There was too much, and she simply didn’t have the energy to explain it all to him. Then Valkyrie shrugged, forcing herself to sound as carefree as possible.

“No, nothing at all.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.” As he smiled back at her Valkyrie couldn’t stop herself anymore.

Standing back up from the chair Valkyrie took a step closer, her vision blurred for a second. She saw the rough image of Ghastly stepping towards her. And she pulled him into a hug.

He returned it, and Valkyrie would have liked to tell him how much she had missed him. How much all of them had.

Instead, all she got out was incomprehensible.

“Oh, come on now, it’s not like I’ve been gone for too long. How long has it been? Nine years?”

After she let go, Valkyrie tried to shake the feeling of embarrassment. Deep down she knew that there was nothing wrong with hugging a friend. Especially one like Ghastly. Still, it felt embarrassing and a bit strange. Valkyrie didn’t hug a lot of people. She had definitely punched more than hugged. 

“Not to sound tactless, but were exactly is Skulduggery?”

That was a good point. Valkyrie turned around, following Ghastly as he glanced around the room.  

Ghastly sounded a bit concerned.  

“He did make it right? As much as I understand the world ended, everyone died and then came back.”

“The entire universe ended. But yes, Skulduggery made it back. Everyone did as much as I know.” Valkyrie bit her lip. “He just…”

If there was anything she would have liked to do it was to punch Skulduggery. But he wasn’t here right now. Which was the exact reason for Valkyries need for violence. She didn’t want to explain or even could explain his absence. Do I look like a skeleton that’s afraid of confrontation, Valkyrie? Right now, in his shining lack of being there, he did.

“He is just what?” Ghastly looked at her as they entered back into the empty corridors. He didn’t look upset or impatient. If it had been Valkyrie in his place, she would have been fuming.

“He just looks a bit different. More alive than usual.

I think he needs a new suit.”

The tailor shop in Dublin was still there. The drive hadn’t been too long, but she couldn’t help but notice the uncomfortable silence that had hung in the air. When Ghastly had seen his friend, his face had turned from shock to surprise and then confusion. He had expected Skulduggery to come around at some point, just not a version of him that he hadn’t seen in over three hundred years.  

Valkyrie could understand why Skulduggery had waited outside but wasn’t going to empathize with it too much. She had taken the back seat, even if she hated sitting in the back. It made her feel too much like a kid again. Still, she gave Ghastly the front seat, maybe hoping for them to have a conversation. Speak about whatever had to be spoken about. If they were then very quiet, but it wasn’t as if Valkyrie was trying to focus on that.

Her gaze went to the car window as they drove out of Roarhaven onto a country road and then finally on the highway. Cars were passing by, and Valkyrie could make out the people within. Some alone, some with family and others with dogs glancing out of the windows. It seemed all normal. Her mind wandered back, again to her family. She should have already called them.

Now the fear that had been growing in the back of her mind, that her family wouldn’t respond to her calls, changed. Irrational, that’s how fears were. No matter how often she told herself that. It still had its effect. From worrying that all she would get was the mailbox and the realization that her loved ones would never answer her calls to the unpleasant question of why they hadn’t contacted her yet. Why hadn’t her family called? Why hadn’t her mother sent her a small message yet?  No calls, no messages. Did they forget? Did they have no time. Not even for a small heads up. Nothing. The uncertainty ate her up inside.

The first thing Ghastly did, as they entered the shop, was disappear into the back. The mannequins stood still in place the same way as they had, when Valkyrie was here last. They had always given her a slight feeling of unease, sometimes she had even believed them to move on their own. But all in all, the shop looked the same as always. Except for one thing.

“I expected it to be dustier. I mean Ghastly wasn’t here in years, and it doesn’t look as if anyone else was here either.”

“Oh, that must have been me.”

Skulduggery was leaning against the sofa, trying his best to look as natural as possible. Valkyrie thought he would have, by now, gotten the hang of facial expressions. She remembered the disguise he had gotten back when she was just fifteen. It had just been there, giving the simple illusion of a face. And Skulduggery had never cared to display any emotions on that mask.

“What do you mean? You just visited his shop.”

“Not visited, there was nothing to look at or to see.”

He shrugged and turned his head to one side. It was both familiar and weird. Now that he had a face it was mostly weird.

“I just wanted to make sure no one was going to wreck the place. Or demolish it since, technically speaking, nobody was there to occupy the shop.”

“I don’t think anyone would have done that.”

“You’re right but it still felt…correct, to come here. Especially after you left for America.  And while I was there, I made sure that Ghastly’s shop didn’t end up in complete disarray.”

“That’s quite…sentimental. I always thought you hated sentimentalism.”

Skulduggery face did something that almost looked like a smile and Valkyrie would have nearly forgotten the thing that had been nagging on the back of her mind since the deletion.

“You know you can just call them.”

“What?”

“God, Valkyrie. It’s obvious. You’ve basically been itching to call your family since the moment we came back.”

“I just thought it might not be the best time.” She glanced at Skulduggery with her phone in hand.

“Well now it is. If I was your family, I would be beginning to feel insulted that you haven’t called to check in yet.”

She gave him a weak smile already typing in her parent’s number as she left for the door to talk outside. There was no real reason for her to worry. Her parents, her little sister, would be fine, they would be well and alive.

Ghastly had made tea. It was a simple one, maybe not his favorite sort but that wasn’t the end of the world.

“I really did miss it, didn’t I.”

As he came back into the front of the shop, he saw Skulduggery leaning against the sofa. It was more than strange seeing his friend like this. It had taken Ghastly nearly over two years, getting used to seeing his friend in his bare skeleton form. As much as you could ever get used to that.

Now with eyes back in his usually empty sockets and the chin long hair that framed a face he hadn’t seen in over three hundred and thirty years, it almost gave him an uncanny feeling. Truly the last time he had ever seen Skulduggery’s face was when he had already been dead. Or more so what was left of it as his friend’s corpse was being burned on the pyre.

“Oh, the end of the world wasn’t that big of a deal. Really it was pretty boring, nothing you haven’t seen yet.”

“If you say so.”

Ghastly put down a plate with the teapot and handed Skulduggery, after a short moment of hesitation, a cup.

“I would have still liked to see it. Everything getting deleted one thing after another.”

“Yes.” He eyes the cup in his hands suspiciously. “At some point me and Valkyrie were the last two people to exist.”

He took a sip from his own cup, for Ghastly’s taste the tea was already too cold.  

“Would you rather drink something else?”

“No, it’s fine.” Skulduggery took a fast sip from his cup and grimaced. “I just remembered how I wasn’t a tea drinker at all.”

“You were not.” Ghastly took another sip and the conversation came to a halt. He could see how Skulduggery was grasping the cup of tea as his eyes wandered around the room. Did it feel, did it look different, to see with eyes again?

Back then, when Skulduggery had come back from the dead, he hadn’t asked such questions. How it felt, how it was, being dead. How it was even possible.

Skulduggery hadn’t been in the mood to answer any questions about his state of existence and Ghastly had felt that it sounded somewhat indelicate to ask.

Now it was the opposite.

“So how is it, to be alive again.”

“That’s the same question that I could ask you. I mean you were dead for a while and missed a bunch. So really, how have you been?”

He was avoiding the question but Ghastly could ask him later.

“What a nice way to put it. Also, Valkyrie told me I missed nothing.” Ghastly tried his best to sound casual and refilled his cup.   

“If she means by that the return of the faceless ones, a nearly avoided zombie apocalypse from a parallel universe, a group of radicalized teenagers almost carrying out an attack on a military base in America and an overly corrupt high Sanctuary, then yes. You missed almost nothing.”

“The last one was to be expected.”

His friend shrugged. “I suppose you’re right. It still was- What?”

Skulduggery must have noticed how Ghastly was looking at him.

“That suit looks horrible on you.” Ghastly wanted to stand up from his chair already creating a new, better and more fitting suit for him in his mind.

“I know. Thanks” Skulduggery had put the still full cup back on the table. “I appreciate it, but you don’t need to make me a new suit right now. Even if you technically owe me since I kept your shop clean. Ghastly, your first order of business should be something else than throwing yourself back into work. Maybe Tanith would be happy to hear from you.”

It was ironic of him to say that, but Skulduggery had a point.

He had already thought about her, Ghastly felt slightly ashamed that he hadn’t yet spoken with her. It must have slipped his mind.  

“And I’m just going to let you walk around like this?”

Maybe he was a bit worried that her feelings for him had faded over time. Or that she had found someone new.

“I can assure you that I have looked and worn much worse clothes.”

Ghastly relaxed back into his chair. He was still not going to let Skulduggery leave his shop without at least one more fitting outfit. He chuckled slightly as his eyes wandered back to Skulduggery who raised an eyebrow. Or rather both. But he was sure that his actual goal had only been one.

“God. I appear almost fifty and you look as if you’re still in your early thirties.”

“Lucky me.”

Skulduggery, for his part, didn’t show how he felt, specifically about being alive. He didn’t talk much about his feelings, nor did he about being dead before, so Ghastly didn’t hope for too much. Still, he wasn’t going to just believe that it didn’t affect him either.

“You don’t seem to ecstatic about that change.” He didn’t answer right away and Ghastly saw a look flash over Skulduggery face. It was an almost childish expression, of someone that had was exhausted of the conversation. He now expected to get no answer whatsoever, that Skulduggery was simply going to ignore his question and change the topic.

“Why should I be? It had its advantages. Being dead.” He brushed his hair out of his face.

“No need for food or actual sleep. I never had to care about getting a haircut or conform to any standards.”

“It’s not like any of us ever cared about conforming to social standards.”

Skulduggery nodded. “But do you know, Ghastly, what the best thing about being dead was?”

For a moment the only sound that was breaking the silence between the two men was the ticking of a clock and slight creak of the floor as Skulduggery leaned forward.

“Not having to blink.”

Ghastly waited. Having not yet decided if it was a joke and if he could still expect a somewhat more serious answer.

“I really can’t explain how humanity has survived for so long.”

Maybe he had hoped a bit too much.

“Your biggest issue about being alive is having to blink?”

“Yes, and that constantly. It truly is a miracle that all of you have survived for so long whilst having to close your eyes every few seconds.”

“Lucky us.” Should he find this entertaining or annoying? He knew that Skulduggery wouldn’t tell him how he felt, not now. And that humor had always been a way for him to cope with anything and everything. He just wished that his friend would be a little more honest with him.

“Is there anything else you would like to be improved about the human experience?”

“The constant feeling of hunger.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“What. When was the last time you ate anything?”

“Oh, that must have been…” Skulduggery turned his head to one side. A finger tapping against his chin.

“The 18^th.”

“The 18^th of?”

“The 18^th October of 1690.”

The fridge and all his cupboards were empty. Shortly before he died Ghastly had already barely spend any time in his shop, so groceries had been sparse. Now there was absolutely nothing.

“I’m thankful that you took care of my shop, but did you really have to throw out all of my food?”

“I didn’t throw it out; I gave it to the people in need.”

It wasn’t hard to know that Skulduggery was lying. He might have been good at it before, but now, with an actual face that was showing emotion, even if he didn’t want it to, it was obvious.  

“I’m sure you did. Someone probably knocked on the door and asked for food, because a tailor’s shop is definitely the first place you would go for.”

“I have the slight suspicion that you, Ghastly, aren’t believing me.”

The door opened and for a second Ghastly wondered who it could be. He had completely forgotten about Valkyrie.

“That was a long phone call.”

“Oh well.” Valkyrie smiled at Ghastly. “A few calls, actually.”

She was still standing there, the door wide open behind her, letting the warm afternoon air in.

“I just thought Tanith would be happy to hear that you’re back.”

Before he could say anything, Skulduggery made his way over to Valkyrie, ready to leave.

It made him nervus, Ghastly had expected Valkyrie to tell Tanith at some point that he was alive, but so soon? The possibility of seeing Tanith again didn’t upset him though. It made him nervus and a bit afraid. That they wouldn’t reconnect.

“Wait.” He motioned at Skulduggery, who was right behind Valkyrie, she had already stepped outside into the sunlight.

For a moment he disappeared into the back just to come out with a suit a second later.

“It isn’t going to fit you perfectly, but it will definitely look better than what you are wearing right now.”

Ghastly wasn’t someone who ran away or avoided his fears. The worst thing Tanith could tell him was no. That she wasn’t interested anymore. Nothing he wouldn’t survive.

But Ghastly was also someone who hated seeing people dressed horribly. It physically hurt him.

“If you come by in one or two days I can give you a proper suit.”

“I appreciate it, really Ghastly, but it’s not necessary.” Skulduggery held up his hands, he sounded thankful but looked more embarrassed. Maybe in a few days, Skulduggery would be able to both express emotions and control the ones he didn’t want to show on his face.

“I agree with Skulduggery.” Valkyrie turned around resting her hand on her hip. “You shouldn’t throw yourself directly back into work, you just came back. Maybe take a week of holidays. When was the last time you did that?”

“Tailoring is like holidays to me. Before I…before I died, I spent basically all my time in Roarhaven. Also, I can’t just let you walk around like this.” He pointed at Skulduggery who seemingly didn’t appreciate his comment.

“Please I don’t think I look that- “

“No, he has a point too.” Valkyrie interrupted. “I might agree with you but Ghastly isn’t wrong either.”

Skulduggery raised his freshly won back eyebrow. This time it almost looked normal. It reminded Ghastly how much Skulduggery had loved to make exaggerated faces when he had been alive.

“Valkyrie-”

“Your shirt is way too tight, your suit looks like it has been washed too hot, and you look like your wearing skinny jeans.”

“It looks like I’m wearing what?!”

Valkyrie had been mindful enough to take the suit Ghastly had wanted to give Skulduggery with her as they both left.

After two hours she decided to call it a day, not only since it had been too much today or the fact she just wanted to see her family again, but because she couldn’t stand Skulduggery’s complaints any longer. He was hungry, he was thirsty, the sun was too bright and the smells around them too overwhelming.

She turned to him after he had made it sound like he was starving.

“I don’t think I’ve been so dramatic about wanting to eat something, ever.”

“I can think of a plethora of times when you did.”

She shrugged as he started driving again.

“Are you sure you don’t need glasses?”

“Why should I?”

“Because you squint. It almost looks like your eyes are closed.”

“It’s the sun.” He gestured in front of the windshield towards the setting sun. “It’s far to irritating.”

“That’s what why we have sunglasses.” Valkyrie glanced at Skulduggery. She had tried not to make it obvious. It just felt weird talking and listening to him. Knowing that he was now alive and human. That she was speaking with Skulduggery while he also looked like the actual Skulduggery. One she had never met.

“Where are yours by the way. I thought you always had a spare pare?”

“Sadly, my dear Valkyrie, spare pairs do run out.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. Glaring back up into the sky while Valkyrie had her eyes on the road. She had never worried about Skulduggery’s driving skills; she was beginning to now.

“No, I think we just have to destroy the sun. It is just far too bright.”

Both ended up in a small fast-food restaurant, whilst Valkyrie was simply eating Skulduggery looked more than uncomfortable.

“This is weird.”

“It’s just a fast-food place. You said you were hungry. You act as if you’ve never been in one.”

“I have never. The only time that I came close to was when trying to catch a murderer.”

“Really?” She looked up from her almost finished plate. For how hungry he had loudly announced he was, Skulduggerys plate was basically untouched.

“What? Were they trying to end all fast-food chains to save the world from an unhealthy diet?”

“No.” Skulduggery eyed the fries in front of him suspiciously. As much as Valkyrie could say he had never been alive long enough to eat ‘French’ fries.

“They actually went on a killing spree and hid here with the bodies of their victims. Where the kitchen is now is where they hid. And where they bleed out when I shoot them.”

He took a bite from the fries and made a face. Something between surprise and disappointment.

“But that was before this wonderful place was built. So, I guess it doesn’t count.”

She looked at him, looked down at her plate and then towards the kitchen.

“Oh, that’s- “

“I’m kidding Valkyrie. God and I thought you were good at telling right from wrong. What kind of detective are you?”

“You could just stay over at Grimwood. I have enough space and a couch or two to spare.”

Skulduggery parked his car and was just about to head to his house. Over all the years Valkyrie had thought he had stopped living in the cemetery street. He could have gotten a house in Roarhaven. Even if she would have understood why one wouldn’t want to live there. Even now.

“You are too kind.” He pulled out his keys and unlocked the front door. “But I have my own home for a reason and I think I would just annoy you.”

“And how so?”

“I just remembered that I snore quite a lot.”

“Hold on.” She reached for the suit and handed it over to Skulduggery.

“If I see you next time you better wear something that actually fits you.”

He glanced at her as he stood in his hallway “Should I take that as a threat?”

“I won’t walk around with you while you look like you just had a growth spurt overnight.”

“Didn’t I kind of do that?”  

“It makes you look ridiculous.”

“Well at least you will look better beside me than.”

“I always look better besides you.”

Chapter Text

The door closed behind him. Skulduggery only noticed now how cold it actually was, not

just the temperature changed, going from outside to inside, but in general. He

remembered Valkyrie complained about it back when she first visited.

Skulduggery took off his coat, ignoring the cold. He had never needed to heat his home. Sure, once Valkyrie had been with him, he had made an effort to adjust his house so that it was suitable for a living person.

Now, as he stepped into the kitchen, he would need to try and fix his heating problem. If he was going to stay human.

A part of him wished that, by the next day, he would be just a skeleton again. It was not something he preferred but gotten used to, it was simpler.

He didn’t need to eat or stay hydrated, there was no need for warm clothes in winter, and he couldn’t complain about the heat in summer either.  

Being dead made him also less squeamish. There was no sense of smell, which had been especially good when arriving at a place cloaked in the smell of decay. If that had now been a battel field or a crime scene.

But now, he had to admit, being able to smell and taste again was quite nice. Skulduggery opened a window, letting the warm air into his home and watching the sun as it slowly disappeared.

He remembered how it had felt, as the world went dark. Skulduggery would have liked to claim that he hadn’t been afraid. That he had not worried and instead been calm in the face of their disappearing world. Valkyrie had been the last thing he had seen before the nothingness had merged with him.

And then it had all come back. The weight of gravity pushing down on him, something you couldn’t have ever noticed if it hadn’t been missing. He had felt the ground beneath his feet and the sun…the sun warm on his skin. And the smell of the air around him.

It had been deafening quiet for the first few minutes. The usual noises of people going about their day, of chatter, laughter and even yelling were gone. The only audible sound was slight gust of wind and his own breathing.

Having skin felt strange. After such a long time of having only bones and with a sense of touch that strayed from the norm, it made Skulduggery almost feel alien. He had felt the warm air on his skin. The gravel under his hands. It wasn’t unpleasant, it wasn’t a new feeling either, Skulduggery remembered what it felt like, but he had pushed those memories away. They wouldn’t have brought him comfort, not even a sense of nostalgia or melancholy. He had believed those experiences to be gone forever.

Long since had he tried to get rid of the envy, the jealousy that he felt when he saw people, his friends or even enemies. Alive, with a body. One that let you feel the warmth of a fire on your skin, one that let you experience hunger and the feeling of satisfaction after a good meal. Gave you the ability to smell, taste and feel.

It had only fueled his growing anger, the hate that he had felt, not just for the ones that had wronged him but for everyone alike.

Now it was only the little things that, with a peng, brought back the slightest feeling of bitterness. The always constant but now for the moment painfully obvious alienation.

They didn’t go away, he had carried that resentment around for so long, being alive wouldn’t just dissolve it.

After a brief consideration of what he should do next, regarding the fact that he was now alive, Skulduggery put the suit Ghastly had given him on the nearest couch and went to the bathroom.

It was slightly colder here than in the living room and it took Skulduggery far too long to find a towel. Most of his drawers were empty. He had no need for shower products or anything that a normal person might need in their bathroom. Until now that was.

He unbuttoned his shirt and put his clothes onto a small pile. One of the only normal things that could be found in Skulduggerys home was a washing machine and a dryer. He did of course wash his suits even though the number of destroyed outfits he had to throw away after a mission was growing rapidly. It was almost concerning.

The water stream out of the shower was awfully cold. It was one of the few times the shower was fulfilling its raison d’être, and this was the first time he was using it.

Skulduggery wondered if he now needed to reinvent himself, as he adjusted the temperature. Or at least parts of himself, as the water streamed down his face. People tried to do that all the time. Acting as if a simple hair cut or change of style was a way to conclude with something. Or they just changed something about themselves because they were bored. Mainly because they were bored.

He never had the luxury of getting to change something about his appearance. If you didn’t count the sigil that let him get a new face whenever he needed a façade to wear. He wondered if that still worked.

But there had been no hair to cut, style or colour differently, no fingernails to paint and no skin he could tan or possibly get a tattoo on. And a change in clothes would have been possible but ridicules.

Stepping out of the shower Skulduggery wrapped the towel around himself. The fabric felt odd against his wet skin. The first thing he had noticed when coming back, when Darquise had recreated the universe, was the fabric of his suit against his skin. The sudden need to breathe as well. It had felt weirdly freeing. The way one would let go after holding their breath in fear or tension.

Skulduggery looked at himself in the small mirror, his hair still damp with occasional drops of water falling down from it. Maybe he needed to cut his hair? For his taste now, it was too long. Back then longer hair did have its looks, surely. Even if the risk of it being set a flame by someone throwing a fireball was therefore higher.

He remembered more than once how his hair had almost been set on fire, the smell of smoldering hair and skin came to mind. A memory, a picture, tried to make its way from his subconscious into his mind. Suppressing both thought and memory, Skulduggery shook his head, looking back into the bathroom mirror.

He could have gone to his dressing room with the large mirror if he had wanted to see his entire reflection. Skulduggery put a hand up to his chest. His body was oddly warm; it was supposed to be like this of course. The regained sense of temperature was something he would have to get used to.

Underneath the skin, muscle and blood he could feel his collarbone. It was still there, his skeleton. It felt different.

The skin beneath his fingers, warm, smooth and still wet felt strange. Only because he didn’t have any skin or nerves didn’t mean that he hadn’t been able to know how something felt. It was just different, now, his hand being no longer bare bone.

Skulduggerys hand moved to his face. The skin was softer, and he traced over wrinkles and smile lines. On his chin he could already feel a few stubbles. Not even a day alive again and he was already growing a beard. Skulduggery didn’t want a beard, not just because it wouldn’t fit him, it wouldn’t fit his personality. But because he had the strong suspicion that Valkyrie and possibly Tanith would never stop making comments about it. They would probably have a nickname set ready for him within minutes.

He hadn’t really needed the proof of seeing his reflection to know that this was his body. The first thing that had made it apparent was the lack of someone else’s consciousness. How familiar it had felt. Skulduggery had felt or more so been aware of the security guard’s consciousness when he had used his body as a temporary home.

But here there was none. None but his own. Nothing had changed at all.

The way Valkyrie had looked at him at first had been all too peculiar. She had never met him when he was alive. And Skulduggery had never told her what he had looked like before his all too tragic demise. The closest resemblance to him being alive were his siblings. Well, some. Maybe after their reunion Valkyrie would have been able to get a clearer picture of how he might have looked.

His hand combed through his hair. He had always liked its natural waviness but really did need to cut it. Skulduggery could see himself in the reflection and his eyes wandered back over his body. There were no scars, at least not the ones he last remembered.

There were some. But they were old, either from early battels or even his childhood. Skulduggery couldn’t explain it and he hadn’t yet decided how he felt about it. This body was long since gone. And there should not have been a way to bring it back.

Instinctively his eyes wandered up to his face. Judig by age, even if that meant nothing in the magic society, he looked to be in his thirties. He had never lived long enough to grow old, to look old. This ‘version’ of him must have been the last before he had died. Not the last to be exact.

Skulduggery only owned suits. And a few tuxedos for special events. But there was nothing that would pass as sleep wear. It made sense, for the last three hundred years he hadn’t slept. The only thing he did close to sleeping was meditating. Skulduggery didn’t call it sleeping, even if it helped him recharge and ‘wake up’ more energized than before.

As a skeleton he didn’t need to eat, drink or in this case sleep. Which had been a great quality, in war and afterwards. A smart man, or maybe a dumb man, Skulduggery couldn’t say, had once said that evil never slept and neither did Skulduggery.

Now he could feel his eyelids getting heavier and he yawned. When was the last time he had done that. Actually yawned? Not out of boredom to show the bad guy of the week that his evil monolog wasn’t all that impressive, but out of real tiredness?

It was an all too unimportant question but one he couldn’t seem to find an answer to.

The shirt he had decided on didn’t fit him. And that, even though he clearly remembered having worn one like it if not the same. The only problem was that all his clothes weren’t tailored for him. They had been made with Skulduggery as an all too thin skeleton in mind.

At least Ghastly would make one for him that would fit him. Skulduggery hadn’t really been opposed by the fact that his friend’s first action after being brought back to life was to make a new suit for him. He had only said those things out of formality. And because he didn’t know what else to say. He knew that Ghastly cared, and that he knew that being alive again wasn’t going to be easy. Skulduggery didn’t want to talk about it. Not with Ghastly.

Usually there was always something to talk or laugh about with him. Skulduggery could count on one hand the times their conversation had been so silent as today.

Today wasn’t usual, was it? He had seen how Ghastly had looked at him. There was no way he would blame him. Especially if Skulduggery hadn’t even found the courage himself to meet him. He had stayed behind while Valkyrie had gone ahead. What had he thought? That it wasn’t really Ghastly?

He should have been there first; Skulduggery should have been more grateful. He was grateful that his oldest friend was alive again. He should have shown it.

Skulduggery was frustrated with himself. He hadn’t been able to face Ghastly, knowing that he would ask him questions he had no answers to. It almost gave him a slight feeling of déjà vu.

After his five-year long absence. When he had returned to the dead men. There were questions, confusion and hints of anger. To those questions he had answers, vague lies but still answers.

This. He couldn’t explain. Skulduggery had no answer to the fact that he was alive. Maybe he just couldn’t handle it.

Skulduggery sat in his living room, legs crossed, and eyes closed. At least he could close them. Trying his best to meditate. But meditating was quite hard. It hadn’t been an issue before. The only complication he might have run into was that he could simply not stop thinking.

But now, being alive made it more complex. Not only was his mind filled with questions and thoughts, but his own body was distracting him too.

He knew that it wasn’t possible, still Skulduggery felt as if he could feel every vein in his body.  Every small movement and every last twitch. It was quite bothersome.

Leaning against the couch he tried to wait for sleep to come. Something that had been oddly reassuring to him when he had been alive was that, no matter what, he would always fall asleep. Now he just waited and sat there.

Skulduggery hadn’t slept in centuries. So, waiting for it made him feel weird and unproductive.

He wondered if he could even fall asleep.

Chapter Text

Skulduggery sat up straight.

The room around him was dark, he had forgotten to close the curtains. Regardless, there was no light that shined through the window, it was still night and the only streetlamp close to his house was broken.   

He felt both hot and cold. A thin layer of sweat covered his forehead, hair sticking to his face.

At the end he must have fallen asleep. But instead of feeling well rested he could feel his heart pounding, his breath was fast and uneven.

Adrenalin. The rush of it was not unfamiliar to him. During his life he experienced it almost every day. On an open battlefield, whilst hiding from monsters or trying to sneak up to an enemy camp. It could have almost been the most memorable of his feelings.

But Skulduggery wouldn’t have said that he was in any danger right now. He was in his house. Good, that didn’t have to mean much. Houses could get broken into or collapse. But then there was the question why anyone would break into his house in particular and the fact that the building had not yet decided to fall apart and bury him alive.

Still, he felt, his entire body felt, on edge.  

The room was still uncomfortably cold, Skulduggery realized. And for a second, he was annoyed, at himself, that he hadn’t paid his heating bills or at least got a small chimney. The annoyance only grew, letting him forget the fear that had set him on edge. He couldn’t see anything.

Eyes were nice to have.

Sure. They were nice to look at and people acted less uneasy than when they could only stare at his empty eye-sockets. Which they mostly avoided. What frustrated Skulduggery more than the permanent need to blink was that he had to wait until his eyes got used to the dark.

It only added to his frustration as he stood up. A little too fast. It was already dark enough and his eyes had just adjusted as his vision blurred, and it got dark again for a few seconds.

After a short sigh and the question of why he had to be alive again exactly, Skulduggery walked over to the kitchen. His throat felt dry. It should have been the least of his problems as he was still trying to get his heart rate back to normal.

He could have turned on the light with ease, but the idea of any bright light disturbing the darkness didn’t seem appealing.

Skulduggery had the small feeling that his vision had been better when he had no eyes at all. Before running into another object, he snapped his fingers. The flame itself wasn’t big, but the light still blinded him.

The fire felt warm in his hand. Not unpleasant. Familiar. He must have done that over thousands of times. Magic had been the one constant in his life.

It had been around him since birth, for better or for worse. It had helped him, save friends, defeat foes and win battles. It had also brought him back, made him unstable, even if the least of blame would fall to the magic itself. It had only been a tool. One he had used to kill and slaughter, never caring, never looking back in the moment. It had also killed him.

The fire curled itself around his fingers. Warm. Comforting.

The kitchen was small and empty. There was a fridge and only the most basic equipment. He had bought most after someone had come over who would actually need things like that. Valkyrie hadn’t stayed over here in a long time. Why should she? Now she had her own house, one that was undoubtedly better and more equipped than his.

Skulduggery himself hadn’t been here in a while. In the last year or so he spent most of the time in Roarhaven. At the start they had considered using his home as a base for their resistance, but it had been off the table rather quickly. Tanith had said that it would be stupidly obvious. Meanwhile Dexter meant that this was the whole point. It would be so obvious, no one would ever believe that they’d be so dumb.

A lonely glass stood on the kitchen counter. It appeared clean so he took it.

Skulduggery had woken up from a dream. The adrenaline was slowly disappearing, which should have been good but now the thing that remained was the unease.

The first time he had slept in centuries, and he had a nightmare.

The feeling didn’t go away. Skulduggery almost felt as if it was growing with every second. He didn’t want to know what it was. What his mind had made up. Whatever it had been already fled his memory, only the faintest echo of it stayed.   

Something felt off. The glass in his hand was barely filling up. Time wasn’t moving correctly. It was going by too slowly. Even the sound of the tap, as the water came out  and filled the glass, was odd. As if everything was going in slow motion including the sound.

There was enough he had seen and lived through for his brain to turn into some vicious nightmare. Ther more upsetting part was how much it had thrown him off. He had woken up sweaty and full of adrenaline.

The last nightmare he could remember was out of his childhood. Something that, from his perspective now, wouldn’t have terrified him at all. It was one of the positives of being dead. The horrors of reality could never follow him into meditation. He had no brain to create nightmares or dreams. Skulduggery had never been a big dreamer to begin with, so he hadn’t been devastated at all, figuring out that he couldn’t sleep anymore.

He could imagine what had woken him up so violently. What had made its way into his sleep and dream. It had occupied his thoughts the entire day.

Something wet ran over his hand.

Skulduggery looked down, finally realizing that the glass wasn’t just full but overflowing. The cold water breaking him out of his thoughts. Luckily.

He emptied the glass in one go. It helped against his thirst but not the unease. Shaking his head Skulduggery left the kitchen. 

As he walked back to the couche he had chosen to rest on he passed a mirror. Glancing at it he could only make out the outlines from his silhouette. Another snap of his fingers and a flame appeared back in his right hand. It was even smaller than the last one. Maybe it was exhaustion and tiredness.

It wasn’t big enough, he held the flame in front of him, seeing its reflection in the mirror. His face was barely illuminated by it.

His left hand went up to it, out of reflex or maybe fear, to see if his face was still there. If there had been light Skulduggery could have easily reassured himself. He didn’t want to so his face. The flame in his outstretched palm didn’t grow though. It stayed small, maybe it lost even more of its brightness. A small, subliminal change.

Didn’t want to see the image that had crept into his mind.

He had always pushed it away. Every time, with every look and glance in a mirror, whenever there had been the smallest reflection of his own face, it had come back.

A reminder, a memory he had buried. Not having a face, only a skull had been merciful on his memories. It was the complied opposite to what had once been. A face full of life, replaced by a skull. Nothing that could visibly resemble him anymore. It had disappeared into his subconscious. Until today, until he had worn his own face again.   

The last time he had actually seen his face, reflected in a mirror or maybe a puddle, was quite a long while ago.

His hand was slowly wandering up on the right side of his face. It was warm, not cold. Whole, no scars, no burned flash, no fresh blood, not even a small bruise.

First, he had been glad, pleasantly surprised even. But with every glance the feeling had grown into something else, a slight feeling of sickness and unexplained dread that only grew.

Maybe he had seen it for a swift second. Somewhere, reflected in a puddle of water or blood. His blood. The reflection of his face staring back at him, just as it was now. The image had made its way into his dream. Skulduggery knew that it wasn’t some crude, nightmarish concoction of his subconscious.

Before he had died there, he had recognized himself. Recognized what had once been his face. The memory had found its way back into his mind. And so did everything else.

He could feel, hear and smell it. Burned hair and skin, slowly rotting flesh and the irony smell of blood.

It immersed him just like the darkness around him did and then he was back.

Back.

The stone floor was cold and uneven beneath his bare feet. He should have closed his eyes. He could have looked away, shutting them tight. But as if in an outsider’s perspective, unable to look away, unable to even blink, his eyes wandered.

Cold bare stone, the natural gray color had been tainted by a darker redder layer. No windows, not even the slightest bit of natural light.

He could see himself.

His face had stared back. No longer expressive but pale and drained. Most of the skin was bruised, cut or burned away leaving his bare flesh exposed. The metallic scent of his own blood was mixed in with the smell of sweat and burned hair.

With the smell coming back, the feeling did as well.

He could feel his reminding fingers clutching into a fist, the pain that stemmed from it was nothing against what followed. Hot and sharp, a blade made its way up to his right eye, dragging itself slowly, almost careful with precision over his already exposed flesh, cutting deep.

At the end there was still one eye left. He wouldn’t lose it; he had known it even back then. Where was the fun after all if your victim couldn’t see and with that couldn’t fear what you were doing next?

The sharp pain had hit him out of nowhere. A swift, unexpected motion. His eardrum had been pierced through. He remembered how distant, misplaced his scream had sounded.

It hadn’t just been his own screams that he heard, the smell of burning flesh and the sound as skin was being ripped off, that he felt. But also, the taste of his blood, metallic, slowly drying, building a crust on his skin. And his tears, hot, salty.

The memories flashed across his mind one more time. He could feel his body tense up as if it was preparing for something.

Skulduggery was still in his in his house. It was still dark. The wooden floor now seemed warm against his bare feet. The mirror in front reflected him and he could make out his face. It was pale and he looked panicked, but it was still whole. His hand ran over his face. Nothing. The pain was just a fleeing memory.  

The sinking feeling had started since he had realized that he was human again. Being alive had a lot of positives but it made Skulduggery vulnerable. It had reminded him of his own vulnerability.

As a skeleton he had not much to worry about. Broken and lost bones, that was all. Maybe a cracked rib. But now he was way more ‘fragile’ than he would have liked to admit.  

He was back on the couch. Skulduggery wasn’t expecting to fall asleep anytime soon and he didn’t mind it. A great thing about not needing sleep was that he had the night for himself. In wartimes he had mostly been the one on night duty, watching while the others got rest. As a detective he had been quicker than others. Usually being awake the entire time. He had been more efficient. Working day and night, alone.

Slowly he felt like calming down. It wasn’t going as smoothly or fast as he had hoped but at last his mind was clear once again.

Leaning back Skulduggery closed his eyes. There was nothing, only darkness.

Maybe he should ask Valkyrie how she handled situations like this the next time he saw her.

Chapter Text

It was still early in the day and Ghastly’s shop was technically closed but the sound of the door opening didn’t surprise him at all.

The man that came in wore a suit that didn’t fit him perfectly, he had brown eyes and-

Ghastly looked up from his work. Putting the unfinished suit to the side.

“Skulduggery, did you cut your hair?”

He had quite a lot to do considering that Ghastly had, even before he’d been murdered, not a lot of free time. Basically none. But he would have rather drowned in fabrics and sowing needles than go through another meeting.

“Glade that you noticed.” Skulduggery stepped in letting his gaze wander around the room. Ignoring the dark circles that were forming under his eyes, he looked almost content with his situation.

“To be honest I liked your long hair more.”

His face turned to a disappointed frown. Skulduggery usually took comments about his appearance lightly. Even though sometimes there was still the off chance that he would start an argument over it.

Instead of defending his choice to change his looks he took one last glance around the room.

“I didn’t know Tanith was staying over.”

Ghastly decided to play dumb.

“And what makes you come to that conclusion, detective?”

Whilst he had to hide his smile Skulduggery looked all too serious.

He pointed to the small table. “There are two cups.”

“And?” He raised a daring eyebrow. “The second cup could belong to anyone. Maybe it’s even yours from two days ago and I just forgot to put them away.”

“You always clean up, it’s a different sort of tea, one you personally said you don’t like but it just so happens to be one of Tanith’s favorites.”

“So? My opinion could have changed. I could have invited anyone over, and they just happen to like the same sort of tea.”

He shrugged.

“It’s not really that substantial evidence.”

“Tanith’s bike is parked besides your shop.”

“Oh.”

Ghastly could feel his face growing red and just for a second a smile hushed over Skulduggery’s face. He stepped out of the doorway.

“Well, I’m not here to embarrass you more than usually. You said you had a suit for me? This one doesn’t fit.”

“I told you it wouldn’t fit perfectly.”

“I thought that was the self-criticizing perfectionist speaking out of you.”

He went up to one of the mannequins. The top had been the last thing he had to work on. The suit was dark blue and for the tie he had decided on one with light blue decorations.

“I didn’t know you also made ties with patterns. They were always just solid colours”

“I just thought a little change was needed.” He looked back at his friend with his now shortened hair.

Skulduggery’s eyes narrowed as he took the suit. “Are you really going to make me getting a haircut that big of a deal?”

Ghastly smiled, he knew that Skulduggery wasn’t actually upset, but he also wasn’t going to push it any further.

“No, it’s just an unexpected change.”

“You don’t say.”

Five minutes later Skulduggery came out of the dressing room, adjusting his tie.

“Have you invited her over for dinner yet?”

“What?”

He was a bit confused. After Valkyrie and Skulduggery had left, Tanith had called, just ten minutes later, they had talked for a while. Ghastly knew that, for him, nothing had changed over the years. Tanith was still as smart, witty and strong as she had been all those years ago. Tanith for her part wasn’t opposed to the idea of them being together either. Since they had met, she hadn’t really dated anyone. Ignoring everything that had happened after she had become possessed.

“You said you wanted to invite her over for a dinner.”

“Oh.” He remembered having told Tanith that. It wasn’t as if he had forgotten it. Those memories were once he thought often about. Ghastly had long tried to stop dwelling on the past. He couldn’t change it. No ‘what ifs’ could change it. But there were just certain events, no matter if twelve or three hundred years ago, that his mind would wander back to. Wondering what could have been.

It wasn’t as if times had been simpler back then. But at least he had been ‘just’ a tailor. An outbreak of remnants was not something he wanted to happen ever again. But in contrast to what would follow in the next few years, it paled in comparison.

“Yes. I wanted to…back then.”

“And now?”

He didn’t understand why Skulduggery was so invested in his possible relationship with Tanith. He didn’t remember ever talking with him about such topics. Nore had Skulduggery seemed interested at all.

“Well…it would be nice. But I don’t know if I’m moving too fast. You have to understand that we haven’t spoken in years and, well I died and even though Tanith said she was still interested, I don’t know if I should give her some more time. I mean the world just ended and- “    

“Sounds as if I had to ask you out for dinner this time.”

Tanith stood at the top of the stairs, a grin on her face. Her hair was a bit damp, possibly from a shower. She came down and gave Ghastly a small kiss on the cheek before looking Skulduggery up and down.

“I really don’t know what to think of that suit.”

Ghastly raised an eyebrow and glanced over at her. He had told her that Skulduggery would be coming to pick up his new suit early today.

“Good morning to you too, Tanith.”

 “Don’t you just think it’s too formal?”

Now it was Skulduggery who seemed a bit confused.

“Tanith, I don’t know if you have noticed over the many years that we have worked together, but I usually only wear suits.”

“Yeah, and it looked great. I mean a skeleton in a suit, that’s quite the conversation starter. But now it just doesn’t have the same look anymore.”

“So, you’re saying now that I am alive again, I should wear something else?”

He even sounded a little offended about the fact that Tanith was commenting on his clothing style.

She shrugged.

“Like this, you just look like someone who’s constantly late to a business meeting.”

Skulduggery crossed his arms. “And what should I wear instead? A polo shirt and shorts? A hoodie and sweatpants? A Hawaiian shirt maybe?”

 Before Tanith could answer, he turned to Ghastly.

“Ghastly, would you say I look like someone who would enjoy wearing Hawaiian shirts.”

“Well, I don’t think I can say anything on that topic.”

“What?” Tanith’s tone had changed from amusement to confusion. “I thought you hated those shirts.”

He raised a hand as if to shield himself from the accusation “Hate is a strong word.”

“No.” He looked at Skulduggery who turned his head to one side. He didn’t have to anymore, since he could now convey his feelings via simple expressions again.  Force of habit, he thought.

“I remember you clearly saying that, when they came back into fashion in the 60s, the style was one out of the depths of hell and a strategic attack on everyone’s retinas.”

“I didn’t say it like that.”

“But I know you meant it like that.”

Ghastly could see the smile on Tanith’s face as she followed their conversation. It only made him more embarrassed. He forced himself to calm back down.

“Opinions can change.”

“So, you wouldn’t mind if I requested a Hawaiian shirt maid by you?”

“I wouldn’t be bothered; I’d just deny the request and question your sanity.”

“And if I came in here wearing one?”

It was obvious that neither of them meant it serious. Well, Ghastly a bit more than Skulduggery. But he knew that Skulduggery would never dare to wear anything that resembled an outfit like that. Especially since he had fully agreed with Ghastly’s opinion back then.

“A livelong ban on entering my shop would seems appropriate.”

The shop door closed behind him and Skulduggery, unintentionally took a deep breath. Inside the shop it was always warm, he had now just noticed. But not uncomfortably hot or overly humid. 

Meanwhile outside it was still nice. The sun was already up and there were barely any clouds in sight.  It hadn’t gotten unbearably hot yet, but it seemed like a particularly sunny day he knew that it wouldn’t take long.   

Walking to his car he realized that he didn’t have a favorite season. Or at least he couldn’t remember ever deciding on one. Valkyrie had once asked him. Back then he had said winter. Maybe because in winter people weren’t staring, wondering less about someone walking around all tugged in. Or because he didn’t feel the cold.

It couldn’t have been the snow. Even if he had been able to blend in pretty easy as a skeleton.

Summer wasn’t bad either he decided, closing the door and starting the car. He liked the way all the vegetation bloomed all around him, the sound of birds chirping and insects buzzing. Now he was also starting to appreciate the smell. The different scents from flowers, the way the sun felt on his skin. Warm. Comfortable.

The drive to Roarhaven shouldn’t have taken so long. When he finally made it out of Dublin and onto a secondary road, Skulduggery was glad. While it had been awful in the city with the streets crowded with cars, the traffic became sparse here. Cars became fewer and fewer and the land around him became less and less pleasant.  

Not many mortals found their way into Roarhaven because, for them, there was nothing. They couldn’t see the city from outside and with that had no reason to come any closer.

Sorcerers that had to get to Roarhaven themselves didn’t use cars either. Not because they were particularly environmentally friendly, but using a car seemed like a waste if you could just fly or get your hands on a teleporter. And some were simply too proud to use ‘mortal’ technology. Even if they didn’t say it out loud.

So, he mostly ended up as the only car on the road, driving to Roarhaven. He still noticed it. A shadow above him. It had been there for twenty minutes, following. It was too big for a bird and too close to the ground for any airplane, it almost looked like a person-

Skulduggery stopped his car, opened the door and looked up into the sky.

“You could have just called me to pick you up.”

The woman above him said something. But she was too high up for him to understand.

“I was already starting to wonder when you would notice.”

Valkyrie landed a meter beside him and brushed the loose hair out of her face.

“And I was waiting for you to get bored.”

She walked over to the passenger door. “I would never get bored of following you around.”

“Isn’t that exactly what you’ve been doing for the past few years?”

He restarted the car.

“I see Ghastly made you that new suit.”

“He did and we had a very constructive conversation about fashion.”

Valkyrie made herself comfortable and Skulduggery turned left.

“How are your people?”

“Oh, their fine. I called Militsa and we talked all night yesterday.”

A small grin stole itself across Valkyries face.

“My parents are also alright. They don’t seem to remember anything that happened in the last few months. Alison looked a bit spooked but otherwise I think she is doing better than ever.”

“Makes sense.”

She turned over to Skulduggery.

“How so?”

“Don’t you think that if they remembered what had happened there would be some kind of mass panic? People having all those horrible memories, collectively, about magic? Maybe when Darquise remade the world and with that all the people, she just deleted those memories.”

“That’s probably for the best.

Valkyrie shrugged and leaned against the headrest.

“How have you been? I didn’t hear from you yesterday.”

It was silent for a moment, and Skulduggery had to turn the steering wheel slightly to the right, not to drive right into a pothole. The worse the road conditions the closer they got to Roarhaven.

“Being alive comes with its own complications.”

Cryptic answers were something she had gotten used to hearing from Skulduggery, but Valkyrie wasn’t going to give up that simple. It interested her, still she wasn’t going to push it either. She had a feeling that the whole debacle of being alive affected him more than he would tell her. If he was going to talk about it at all. Usually, when there was something, he didn’t want to discuss, he just switched the topic so casually she didn’t even notice.

For a moment she thought he would.

“It’s strange.”

Skulduggery scratched his chin as he spoke. He wasn’t wearing gloves. Valkyrie could imagine that the ones he had used before didn’t fit anymore. He probably had to throw them all away for being too small.

“I haven’t thought about being alive, being in a body with flesh and blood in a long time. Why should I? After all this time of being a skeleton it had become my new normal. Even if it was bizarre for everyone around. Being like that was simple, it came with its own feelings of isolation and exclusion, but I had no other choice than to get used to it”

“I don’t have an answer why I am alive, again. It shouldn’t be possible.

Maybe Darquise made a mistake, or she just thought it would be a nice change. A gift perhaps even though I don’t believe she liked me that much. I don’t think I’ll get the answer to that any time soon.”

More potholes came their way, and Skulduggery had to drive in swirls to get around them.

“I don’t despise it. But if I could have chosen, I would have liked a ‘fresh start’. A face that would steer up less memories.”

The car slowed down as he took another turn, Valkyrie guessed that it would be less than fifteen minutes until they’d reached Roarhaven.

She never knew what to say after such moments. Usually, Skulduggery would break the silence with a joke. She felt a little ashamed for not knowing how to respond. 

What would a normal friend say? ‘That they were sorry. They were hoping it would get better.’ What should she be sorry about? It wasn’t as if he was ill or had just gotten horrible news. It didn’t matter in the end. It wasn’t as if their friendship had ever been normal. It wasn’t as if they had ever talked about something like this.

Skulduggery took one hand of the steering wheel, searched his pockets and pulled something out. It was an object with a rather distinctive shape.

“At least I can now use the comb that you gifted me.”

“You kept it with you this whole time?”

Valkyrie remembered when she had the genius idea of giving Skulduggery a brush as a Christmas present. In the moment she had felt incredibly smart and funny, looking back now Valkyrie found that decision rather embarrassing.

“Of course.”

Skulduggery answered while fixing his hair.

“You would be surprised on how often this thing has helped me out of dangerous situations.

“Really?”

“No. Your wonderful gift spent most of its time in a drawer in my house.”

The car was coming to a halt and both stepped out. Valkyrie had to blink in the bright light of the sun and as she turned over to him, she could see Skulduggery struggling just as much.

“So, what’s on the agenda for today?”

“Agenda?”

Skulduggery turned to her with an expression of pure confusion. She was starting to think that he had spent hours in front of the mirror, trying to convey emotions on to his face correctly again. Probably just so he could look at her like she had asked the most obvious and also dumbest question in the world.

“Valkyrie has there ever been a time when I had an agenda or a plan perhaps?”

She shook her head.

“So, what do we do then?”

“We see where the day takes us.”