#also they’re insane u can make him wear the suit Val is wearing in the picture….. are they the same size…��� you’re killing me

[cupiidzbow]

finished monkey ball today with my friend Chris and mhmm yep yep i want to kiss these two on the goddamn lips BAD

[lassieposting]

I’m in a ridiculously sappy mood so: the “oh no he’s hot”, the “am I crushing??”, and “I’m in love” moment for val and skul individually

alkdfhldskfhladskfhlkd bless u moonie this was exactly the kind of cute i needed today

this post is three pages in word but contains no capital letters and minimal punctuation rip

VAL

oh no he’s hot:

“I know you are not about to strike my partner” is a big one. like a lot of the time, val basically wants skulduggery to butt out, she can handle herself and she doesn’t need any guy standing up for her. however! angry alpha skul is Hot and she does also kinda need his support at that point so 

also: when she sees him in his war gear. leather. thigh holster. big badass sword. like. val would be dtf wartime general skul, hands down

(also like. in any resurrection!au, time travel!au or whatever where skuldug has a body, bedhead!skuldug gives val life)

am i crushing?

i mean i feel like val has had a lowkey crush on skulduggery since like, age 13, and she’s always been aware of it, and she’s embarrassed about it, and she refuses to admit it to anyone, but

she starts actually accepting it after davina marr calls her out. like, actually having someone bring it up to her in conversation - and tbh, the fact that marr didn’t like. mock her for it or tell her how disgusting it is to crush on skuldug - kind of pushes her to confront her own feelings. 

and like tbh because she’s so young at this point her biggest concern isn’t that he wouldn’t feel the same, bc she doesn’t expect him to. she knows at that age that skul is Unavailable & it takes fuckin years for her to actually think of him as like. a dude that she could possibly have. but it terrifies her that he wouldn’t take her seriously. like. someone telling skuldug about her crush and then having him burst out laughing at her or give her the patronising “it happens to us all” talk would mortify her. Nobody Can Ever Know

aaaaand then ofc he’s back and completely insane and she has like six months or whatever of looking after him to deal with and anything else kind of gets pushed out of her mind bc he needs her very badly right now and like. she’s so glad to have him back. even if he’s nuts, she doesn’t care. & his wellbeing is very much a priority for her and her teenage feelings are very much not, so she just sort of leaves it be

i’m in love

so like. the obvious one is when she thinks he’s about to die and they’re standing in front of the accelerator and she blurts out that she loves him, but tbh i feel like she’s more concerned with realising she’s about to lose him than with ~the sudden realisation of her feelings~ so like

i’m really fond of the idea that while she’s in meek ridge she like, occasionally gets very lonely and tries out one night stands and makes some very bad decisions on tinder and like. bc she’s a detective, over the five years she realises that a) her one-night stands seem to fit a pattern (tall, charming, attractive voice) and b) she doesn’t really get anything out of them? because they’re just…poor substitutes for skulduggery. and like. the sex is one thing but afterwards if they want to cuddle or talk or whatever she gets really avoidant and like. kicks them out. because it’s really hitting her now that she’s got her rocks off that they’re not skulduggery, skulduggery is like four thousand miles away and she’s all on her own and maybe he won’t even be talking to her when she comes back - if she comes back - because she abandoned him and like

idk man i just feel like her Feelings™ hit her really hard at that point and she ends up eating her weight in pop tarts while listening to all his old voicemail messages 

and then get jazzy on it happens once she’s realised this 

SKUL

oh no she’s hot

when he sees val in her requiem ball dress that he bought. she just like. he doesn’t need to breathe but she takes his non-existent breath away. like skuldug has seen val in her standard ‘work clothes’ and he’s also seen her in ratty sweats and a dublin football jersey bc she does sleep over at his by this point, even if she’s on the couch, but like. the last time he saw her in a nice dress she was what, 13? and pouting, bc she didn’t want to be there, and she didn’t want to be wearing a dress, and she was mad at him

so like all of a sudden here she is and she’s very much a Young Woman and she looks all elegant and shit and hes just

like the tongue he doesn’t have stops working it’s not pretty

and by the time she actually gets to him bc girls take ages to walk anywhere in high heels he’s sorted himself out enough to be all smooth with the “you’re always beautiful” 

also. vile has a massive one of these the first time he gets to fight darquesse, bc vile is a fuckin sadomasochist of epic proportions and dq trying to literally kill him is Hot, apparently, and it becomes considerably more difficult for skulduggery to like. dodge his feelings after that. because vile is not subtle. at all. and after that every time someone mentions darquesse/val vile-in-the-back-of-skulduggerys-head gets all ~excited~ and skul has to try and hush him so he can focus and like. vile knows you lyin skulduggery why you always lyin

am i crushing??

honestly i feel like the first time he asks himself this is when he’s ass-deep in ball gowns at the most expensive store google could recommend to him, trying to find something for her to wear to the requiem ball. like? he knows her well enough at this point to work out a) what would suit her and b) what she would like, without ever having seen her in a super posh dress before but girl clothes are hard

and like. at some point in the middle of umm-ing and aah-ing over whether val would prefer a sweetheart neckline or a round one, he does kind of pause and go wait, am i…?

because this is the kind of thing he’s always done for the special lady in his life. he shows affection by spending ridiculous amounts of money - he remembers feeling just as out of his depth in a 1700s dress shop looking for something for his wife as he does now, shopping for valkyrie. (although at least things were done by measurements back then…what on earth is a ‘size 12′?) 

but then the woman who’s been bringing him dresses for the past twenty minutes helpfully tells him the exorbitant price tag of the one he’s holding and points out that the young lady in question will also need shoes and (potentially) appropriate underwear and his wallet and his brain are both screaming but he wants val to feel like the prettiest girl in the room at the ball and he forgets all about it tbh bc he’s Stressed

it comes up again a year later while he’s getting his house done up for val, and this time, he takes it seriously. it’s costing him an inordinate amount of money, and he’s doing it purely so that he can spend more time with her. so that she can sleep in her own bed at his house, and make her own meals in the kitchen if she wants to, and not have to go home when she needs to shower. so that he can keep her with him when she’s hurt, where he knows she’s safe. so that he’s got like. the noise and clutter and all that nonsense that she brings into his home. he wants her to have a home with him. 

and like. skul’s old. he’s been here before, he knows he’s got The Feelings. like he’s mad, bc he promised himself No More Feelings, but, eh. that is a lost battle.

and he’s been gently flirting with her since the requiem ball, but he’s doing his best to ignore that

i’m in love

when he goes to pick her up from america. he’s had five years of being…not quite right. and like, he knows it’s because val isn’t there with him, he knows he misses her, he knows he wishes she’d come home, but he doesn’t realise quite how badly he’s been doing until he’s on her front porch looking at her and she’s looking at him and everything just. falls right back into place. like he’s home now. 

it’s the same feeling he used to get when he’d come home from the front and his wife’s face would just light up at the sight of him even though he hadn’t bathed properly in days or longer and he looked horrific

like she literally is his home at this point, he’d probably have done better if he’d gone to america with her rather than be without her for that long

(basically, everyone else knew skulduggery was in love before skulduggery did.)