valduggerystuff

[valduggerystuff]

WAIT, WAIT, WAIT…..

Have I not told you guys this story?????

I must have mentioned it. I must have mentioned it at some point. 

HAVE I SERIOUSLY NOT TOLD YOU GUYS ABOUT MY HORRIBLE 7TH GRADE PHANTOM FIC????

Okay, buckle up, buckaroos, here we go. This might get long because I can’t shut up, but I’ll put some nice pictures in here to break up the wall of text:

The year is 2004. The film has just come out. I, a 13-year-old closet goth for whom everything is worthy of an overdramatic Shakespearean reaction, watch the movie. It is my first exposure to Phantom besides the silent film; I have never seen the musical before now. So I watch it.

And that’s it. I am gone.

I know, with the single-minded conviction of a medieval Christian martyr, that this is what I have been waiting for. This is now what I would live for.

Me, stumbling into the Phantom fandom, aged 13:

And it did.

IT DID.

But, like any 13 year-old in 2004 whose sole ambition was to be Amy Lee and also Anna Valerious from Van Helsing at all times, I had to rewrite the Phantom’s ending.

I had to.

And it had to be dramatic.

I actually remember sitting down to write this thing in my brown, spiral-bound, Mead 5 Star notebook at, like, 10 pm on a Saturday night after aggressively photosynthesizing the entirety of Fanfiction.net’s Phantom section on my dial-up AOL connection.

Above: Me at 13 about to pen a cultural touchstone with my hot pink gel pen while the Lizzie McGuire Movie soundtrack plays in the background.

I was ready, people, I was flexin’ my knuckles for a fix-it fic and I was full of whirling hormones and crying for no discernible reason other than the fact that I’m a crier, but also, I was 13 and “Erik is so lonely!”

The fic essentially went something like this:

The story plays out as usual, and at the end, Christine leaves with Raoul. Erik–-who looked like Gerard Butler in my brain because I had no other basis of comparison and also, I thought he was hot, thereby completely missing the “ugly” point, but whatever–-Erik breaks all the mirrors and cries and wanders down a corridor and cries some more.

Above: “He’s so SENSITIVE.”

The mob breaks into his lair, but they can’t find him. Even though, ostensibly, they should have been able to, because he really didn’t go far. I think I wrote that he “stumbled through a nearby corridor,” nearby being the operative word here, meaning the mob was either the worst mob in history or just really, really stupid.

Above: “The mob will never find me here.”

Okay, so the mob leaves after looting his lair (he’s got, like, millions of francs stuffed in the walls down there, can you blame them?), and at this point, Erik lets out the breath he’d been holding–-oh, also, I should emphasize again that this is Gerard Butler Erik, so he’s ripped and wearing that torn puffy shirt and those unreasonably tight leather pants and riding boots, even though he has not been anywhere near a horse. And I amended the film so that thick, dark Dracula hair was actually his hair and not a wig, because I wanted it to “fall wetly” into his–here we go, I definitely remember this–“piercing, ice-blue eyes.”

Above: Truly hideous. Look at it for at least eight more minutes to take in the full scope of abjection laid before you. You can even zoom in if you want. 

Actually, I think I gave him two different colored eyes à la Crawford, but I don’t remember what the other color was; probably red, let’s be real, because I was toying with a “HE WAS A VAMPIRE THE WHOLE TIME” reveal that then 13-year-old me thought was a stroke of literary genius.

So ANYWAY.

Ripped Erik is stumbling away and crying in his torn puffy shirt, his 8-pack heaving with his sobs, when he lets out the breath he’s been holding and collapses to his knees.

Then, faint with hunger–

(I don’t remember why he was faint with hunger?? I just remember writing that phrase, which is truly a baffling little tidbit because obviously, he’d been well-fueled enough to stage the whole Don Juan fiasco, and I hadn’t even established that hunger was an issue at play, here, so unless Erik was hypoglycemic and needed to keep his blood sugar levels up, I cannot explain his hunger fainting. My only explanation is that I was a fainter as a kid, so I just assumed most people passed out whenever things became vaguely inconvenient.)

Above: Fanfic Erik after not eating for about 2 minutes, which, honestly? Same.

–faint with hunger, he passes out on the banks of the underground lake and eventually rolls straight into the water.

Meanwhile, upstairs, the entire opera house is on fire from the chandelier crash. People are screaming. I wrote that “hundreds were dead” and that “mothers wept over their children,” which also concerns me in hindsight, because while I fully support introducing children to the arts at an early age, can you imagine trying to explain to your friends why you took your 5-year-old to see the horniest self-insert opera of all time, Don Juan Triumphant? 

Above: “I’ll find her if I have to burn down all of Paris and also this bastion of cultural and artistic nourishment, the very things I have sworn to protect and honor, but whatever.”

So the opera is burning down and Paris is in an uproar. Cut back to the cellars. Erik, still passed out, is now borne by the “furious currents”–I kid you not, I remember that phrase–of the opera lake–

(the underground, stationary, man-made lake, mind you, with no currents at all in real life; like, none)

–and his unconscious body starts to float out into the lake, spurred on by those furious underground lake currents with which we’re all so intimately familiar, until he drifts out from underneath the opera straight into the Seine.

Above: Turn your face away from the garish light of day.

Side note: I have never been to Paris, but I am reasonably certain that the Seine does not connect to the underground lake in the opera house. Which makes the fact that Erik floated all the way out to the Seine even more impressive.

Oh, by the way, the whole Seine was on fire.

I wrote some inexplicable science into the fic about the opera’s “oil stores” exploding in the chandelier crash fire and then leaking into the Seine, which caused an oil spill that subsequently set the entire river on fire.

A few things:

I had no idea the Paris opera house was as oil-rich as a field in Texas, who knew?

Hey, 13-year-old me, that’s not really possible because the Seine didn’t even connect to the lake underneath the–

You know what? Forget it.

Above: The Paris Opera House is the world’s leading petroleum supplier, followed only by Saudi Arabia.

So the Seine is on fire, and all of Paris is panicking, and here comes unconscious Erik floatin’ on down the river like the world’s ugliest, most ripped baby Moses.

Also, he was face-down.

Which should have meant:

Immediate drowning.

Immediate resuscitation, followed by violent choking and spluttering up water.

Death in some other, inescapable way because there’s water, water, everywhere, and also, it’s ON FIRE.

Above: Fanfic Erik, awash in a fiery river, just vibin’.

But Erik didn’t drown or catch on fire or die in any other inescapable way. Miraculously, as if guided by the hand of God, he kept on floating down the fiery Seine, FACE DOWN, without needing to breathe, apparently, because he was a vampire. Maybe.

But I hadn’t established that at all and wasn’t even sure that’s where I wanted to go with the story, so really, Erik was just some guy floating face-down in the river, miraculously not dying the entire time.

And this is where it gets so-bad-it’s good:

He just kept floating. He kept on going. 

On through the Seine out of Paris, out of France, and into–

–you guys ready?–

–into the ATLANTIC OCEAN.

WITHOUT WAKING UP.

AND WITHOUT DYING.

Above: Renaissance trade route with the New World? NOPE. This is roughly the route fanfic Erik went.

Does the Seine even empty into the Atlantic? Does it? I don’t know; I’m an American. None of us know anything about any geography, ever; we’re all idiots, and apparently, we don’t know anything about how DROWNING or BEING MORTAL work, because in my fanfiction, Erik just kept right on floatin’ all the way across the ATLANTIC MOTHERFUCKING–sorry, Mom, but sometimes a well-placed f-word is just great–the ATLANTIC MOTHERFUCKING OCEAN. 

This, I wrote, took “approximately six weeks.”

Which, sure, may have been a realistic travel time for, say, a steamboat, but for an unconscious Frenchman who is floating FACE DOWN in a LARGE BODY OF SALT WATER for SIX WEEKS without proper FOOD OR HYDRATION?

HOW?

Now, I did very well in science class. I did. You probably read that sentence and went

but I promise you, I did. I theoretically understood that it was impossible to survive such a journey.

But I just artistically decided that Erik could do anything he set his mind to.

Plus, I obsessively binge-watched I Shouldn’t Be Alive, and documentaries about parents who lifted cars off of their children in a surge of adrenaline that gave them superhuman powers, so I assumed that sure, an average 40-something-year-old guy could absolutely survive a six-week journey floating across the Atlantic Ocean face-down in a coma.

Oh, yeah, here’s another fun little tidbit: on his way across the Atlantic, he passed the iceberg that would sink the Titanic, because sure, why not at this point?

So eventually, he floats across the ocean and right into where all that tea wound up in 1773: Boston Harbor.

I remember writing something to the tune of “he bobbed into the harbor” which makes me picture his head banging up against a dock or Erik floating stiffly into American waters like a buoy.

Above: Oh, lawd, he comin’.

Yes, he was still unconscious. And face-down.

It’s nighttime when he finally drifts into the harbor, his sexy, Byronic antihero clothes still miraculously intact, and lo and behold, a hot Mary Sue (American, unnamed in the fic because I couldn’t decide between “Lena” and something else that was incredibly awful like “Persephone” or “Artemis”) just happens to be walking along the shores of Boston Harbor when she spots an unconscious man, face-down, in the sand.

(The Boston beach in my mind looked like a California beach, because that was the only beach I’d ever been to, never mind that Massachusetts and California are absolutely nothing alike other than being unbelievably expensive to live in and full of very loud, very opinionated people, heyo, same.)

She “exclaimed, her voice as pure as a bell”–yeesh–and dropped her “basket of violets”–what the hell? Who is carrying violets on a deserted Boston Harbor beach at, like, 2 am? –to rush over to help the man, her skirts rustling, her black hair flying.

And just at the moment she falls to her knees beside him, he wakes. 

Perfectly fine, mind you; just ill enough to be romance-novel sexy. You know. “Faint, delirious, heaving.” Whispering and/or moaning, “Christine.”

Naturally, the unnamed OC isn’t bothered by his hideous (it’s really not that bad, it’s more like mild acne, calm down like 85%) face, because her father was a former–

–here we go again, kids–

–a former Civil War general who was also a doctor who was also Abraham Lincoln’s best friend.

(You bet your ass I found a way to wriggle Abraham Lincoln into a Phantom fanfic. This is America. I can do whatever I want.)

Above: Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

So she was like, “I don’t care about your perfectly fine and objectively extremely handsome face, you are beautiful exactly as you are and also, I, too, am a trained doctor and also a singer and a dancer and impossibly strong, because I am able to lift up this ripped stranger and haul him over my shoulders and drag him back to my spacious apartments overlooking Boston Harbor.” 

Erik fell back asleep/into a coma at that point, just so you know.

And that’s where it ended. I didn’t know where it was going, other than “hot American Mary Sue nurses Erik back to health and teaches him to love again and they live happily, sexily ever after, but in America, and they open a school where Erik is the head music teacher and his hot wife is the hot Other Teacher and they love all the little children equally,” which still sounds more plausible than Love Never Dies.

Above: Live your dreams.

Thirteen-year-old me shelved the fic and then forgot about it, until I was cleaning out my room in 10th grade, found my handwritten magnum opus, and, so mortified I could feel my butthole shriveling up into my trachea, I shredded the whole thing.

Now, look, I’m not saying the loss of that piece of literature was equivalent to the fire at the Library of Alexandria, but, I mean….

…he floated across an ocean.

All for love.

(That was the tagline.)

[valduggerystuff]

[valduggerystuff]

75% of writing is convincing yourself that your story is worth it

[valduggerystuff]

This is 100% the skulduggery fandom.

Coming into a fandom late

[valduggerystuff]

Hell may well be other people

Gordon Edgley

[valduggerystuff]

"What’s the point of being a prisoner if you’re not going to divulge secret plans to your captors?”

“Defeats the purpose,” Vex grumbled.

“It does indeed, Dexter,” Ravel said. “What do you have to say for yourself? Are you suitably ashamed? You should be. If I were you, I’d have a good long think about what a disappointment you’ve been to us. We had high hopes.”

“The highest.”

“That’s right, Saracen, the highest. See? You’ve upset Saracen.”

“I just have something in my eye,” said Rue.

“I have never seen Saracen Rue weep,” Ravel said, “since this morning, but you’ve made him weep like a little child. I hope you’re proud of yourself.” Noche looked at them warily. “You are all insane.”

[valduggerystuff]

“I think we should kill him,” Rue said. “I don’t like him. Look at his eyebrows. They’re odd. He’s got odd eyebrows, and I think they might be magical. He’s trying to hypnotise me with his odd, magical eyebrows.”

“Nobody is trying to hypnotise you,” Shudder said.

“We should shave them from his face and experiment on them.”

“I think the stress has finally got to our dear friend Saracen Rue,” said Ravel sadly. “He was a good man while he lasted. Annoying at times, perhaps, but a good man nonetheless.” “I will be missed,” Rue nodded. Noche frowned up at them. “You’re all insane.”

[valduggerystuff]

“Sneaky little threats are not my thing. I threatened someone once, but I was too subtle about it, so when it came time to throw him off the cliff, he looked awfully surprised. These days when I threaten someone I do it loud and blatant, just to make sure my point has been taken."

Skulduggery Pleasant

[valduggerystuff]

ah, yes. hello. this is a little art piece i like to call: “what the FUCK have i done”, subtitled “i made a shipping masterpost™ for valduggery. this is The Skeleteen Post of your wildest dreams and nightmares.” *

*obviously not everyone will agree about what is or is not a ““ship"“ moment i am not speaking for anyone but my garbage self

UPDATE 3/2/18 hey y’all what’s up it’s been 4 and a half years and i’m still screaming into this garbage hole, i finally updated this post for tdotl and spx, i holler, i can’t believe it, i post 40 screenshots and die 

Keep reading

[valduggerystuff]

“And what’s your nature?“ His head tilted. “Odd question.” “China said some things about you. And Serpine. She said all you want is revenge.” “And you’re wondering how far I’ll go to get that revenge, is that it? You’re wondering how much I’m willing to sacrifice in order to make him pay for killing me all those years ago.” “Yes.” He paused a moment, then slipped his hands into his pockets and spoke. “What China didn’t tell you, what I didn’t tell you, is that I was not the only one caught in Serpine’s trap.” Stephanie didn’t say anything. She waited for him to continue. “The trap was exquisite. A thing of beauty, it really was. You see, Valkyrie, a successful trap needs one important quality, the same quality any trick or illusion needs: misdirection. When your attention is focused on one thing, something else is happening behind your back. “I didn’t even realize it was a trap until it was sprung. Serpine knew me, you see, and he knew how I’d react to certain stimuli. He knew, for instance, that if he murdered my wife and child right in front of me, I’d never even suspect that the handle of the dagger I reached for was barbed with poison.” Stephanie stared at him, but Skulduggery just looked out over the city. “I didn’t use magic, you see, and he knew I wouldn’t. He knew I’d be too angry, he knew my rage would fuel a physical attack, that I’d need to kill him up close and personal. And the moment my hand closed around that dagger, I realized my mistake. Of course, by then it was too late. I was helpless. "It took him a few days to finally kill me. I died hating him, and when I came back, the hatred came back with me.” He turned his head to her. “You asked me what is my nature? It is a dark and twisted thing.” “I don’t know what to say,” Stephanie said softly. “Not much you can say to a story like that, is there?” “Not really.” “Yep, I win on the ol’ dramatic-story front every time.”

— Skulduggery Pleasant (via midian-alexandra)

[valduggerystuff]

"Of course I want to kill you. I want to kill most people. But then where would I be? In a field of dead people with no one to talk to."

Skulduggery Pleasant

[valduggerystuff]

“Hey,” said Gracious over the tannoy, “you think Aurora has a boyfriend?” “Probably,” said Donegan. “I don’t think she does,” said Gracious. “I think she’d have mentioned it. You think she’d go out with me?”

“Probably not.” 

“Why not?�� 

“You’re short.” 

“I’m the same height as she is.” 

“Yeah, but you look like a hobbit.” 

“She might like that.” 

“She might like hairy feet?” 

“My feet aren’t hairy. They’re masculine. So you think she’d go out with me?”

“Still no.” The jet lifted off the ground, but over the roar of the engines Gracious kept talking. “Do you think she’d go out with Saracen?” 

“Probably.” 

“Yeah.” The plane climbed higher. “I would.” 

“You’d go out with Saracen?” 

“If I was going to date a guy, yeah. Wouldn’t you?” 

“Don’t know. I don’t think he’d be my type. You know who I would date? Frightening.” 

“Why Frightening?” 

“I just think he’d be gentle, you know?” 

“Yeah. You wouldn’t date Dexter?” 

“I’d be afraid I might cut myself on his abs,” Donegan said, and they laughed until Gracious said, “Oh, wait, this is the mic button,” and then the speakers cut off.

[valduggerystuff]

skulduggerys house becoming skulduggery and valkyries house? nice

-skul and val arguing about the color of bed sheets because skulduggery is very defensive about keeping a consistent color scheme throughout the house while valkyrie just wants the comfiest sheets

-skul and val making a flat pack bookshelf together and skulduggery refuses to look at the instructions because Why On Earth would a genius such as himself be stumped by a BOOKSHELF, of all things

-valkyrie and her Arms™ carrying heavy boxes through the house and grunting with effort, and when she turns back around to get the next box she sees skulduggery using the air to easily lift 3 boxes in front of him. she scowls. skulduggery tells her its her fault for not thinking of it. it is but valkyrie will never accept that.

-valkyrie watching tv during one of their research sleepovers and sleepily saying “what do you think about painting the walls” and skul doesnt even look at her when he says “absolutely not”

-valkyrie arguing that “towels are part of a house? why should i bring my own towels? buy towels. does that mean you dont shower? dont your bones get dirty? gross”

-valkyrie and skulduggery going grocery shopping with skul in one of his Exquisite Suits™ as usual, and val in a casual t-shirt, and he looks so tall and out of place and a kid is staring at them while they look at cereal and dear god skulduggery has to come back eventually.

-valkyrie getting into the car with skulduggery in the morning and he’s got one of her drinks from the fridge in the bentley waiting for her (but he wont let her open it until they’re out of the car)

-every time val runs out of some food or shampoo or whatever, skulduggery goes and gets it himself and he always leaves it on her bed as a pleasant surprise for whenever she comes over next (he did not consider that rotten bananas are Not particularly pleasant on bedsheets)

-“sooo, since i kinda live here, dont you think i should buy some new outfits so i dont have to pick up clothes from home?” “valkyrie did i not just buy a tv and a mini fridge?”

-“we dont NEED a dryer! cant you just take out the moisture in the clothes?”

“valkyrie cain, i am a living skeleton. why must you insist on treating me like an appliance”

“…..oh my god you could toast bread couldnt you”

[valduggerystuff]

You're going to sulk me to death.

Skukduggery Pleasant

[valduggerystuff]

The Babysitter -- A Skulduggery Pleasant Fan Fic

“Thank you so much for babysitting, Gordon!” Melissa said with a big smile on her face as she handed Stephanie over to her brother-in-law.

“She is a good kid, really adorable. Except that she drives us crazy. But that is what kids do, don’t they? I tried to reason with her, explaining that we need our sleep and all, but she doesn’t seem to understand”, Desmond explained further.

“She is fifteen months old, Des. Fifteen-month-old babies don’t tend to reason with you”

“But she is our daughter after all! She is special! Look at her eyes, I assure you, she understands everything we say. Isn’t that so, Steph?”

The baby girl in Gordon arms giggled and he couldn’t help but smile. God, she was too cute to be true! It was moments like these when his heart broke over the thought that this may have been his daughter if things had worked out with Melissa.

“Gordon, she should be sleeping most of the time, except for when she’s hungry. I know she looks small, but don’t underestimate how much this little one can eat. There are fresh diapers in the bag and if anything goes wrong, just call us and we’ll be here as soon as we can!”

“I got it, Melissa. Really. Look at her, she is such an angel! I’m sure we will get along just fine”, Gordon assured her calmly.

“Okay, okay. Good. Thank you. Oh, and Gordon - no stories about monsters. I don’t want her to get nightmares!”

The author frowned. “Didn’t you just say she is too young to understand?”

“Yes, but… you never know, right?”

“I have everything under control. You two go enjoy yourself”

He kissed her gently on the cheek and shook his brother’s hand before closing the door in front of them. Then he grinned down to the baby in his arms. Her still quite short hair was already deep black, and her dark brown eyes reminded him of a puppy. He loved dogs.

“You and I are going to have a lot of fun!”

She giggled adorably and Gordon felt his heart melt. He carried her to his study and showed her all the books he had collected.

“This, my dear, is my private collection. Everything in here is worth a good fortune, yet nothing is as precious as you are”

He let her down gently and Stephanie started to run around through the room, touching the books and marvelling at the height of the shelf. She ran and occasionally pulled a book at, frantically flipped pages, frowned when she noticed that there were no pictures in them, and then ran to the next one, creating a minor mess.

“Alright, maybe you’re a bit too young for books…”, Gordon said decidedly to himself and went to find something else she could play with. She ran after him excitedly, and as he noticed that he didn’t exactly have a lot of kid friendly things around, she was not behind him anymore.

“Um, Stephanie? Steph?” He didn’t exactly expect an answer, yet heard giggling from the bathroom and found the toddler in his laundry basket.

“What are you doing, hm? Making the laundry?” She didn’t react, instead pulled out a pair of worn socks and spun them around in the air. It didn’t take too long until she smelled them though, screwed up her nose and said “Yuck”, before throwing them out into the bathtub. Gordon laughed and went to pick them up.

“You don’t really like my socks, do you?” Stephanie ignored him, instead took one of his t-shirts. Her eyes widened as she saw how big it was compared to herself. Clumsily she got out of the basket, which she turned over in the process, held the shirt behind her and started to swing it around, looking as if she were dancing.

“Oh, so you like dancing, huh? Follow along, Stephanie!” He went to turn the stereo on, having her run behind him, the shirt flying behind her like a cape. As soon as the music played, her face lightened up and she moved awkwardly to the beat of the music, wrapping the shirt around herself, causing her uncle to laugh out loud. He got down to his knees and took her little hands into his, then made different movements with his arms, gently pulling her around and spinning her. She laughed delightful. A few songs in, the doorbell rang.

“Who may that be?” he asked Stephanie, picked her up and went to open the door. Skulduggery Pleasant stood there in an exquisite three-piece suit and hat, with the scarf he used as disguise casually hanging down at his skull, looking at him at first, then noticing the baby in his arms.

“Please tell me you didn’t kidnap her”, the velvet voice said jokingly.

“No, but I may just keep her. Skulduggery, this is my niece, Stephanie”

“Stephanie, what an honour to meet you”

The skeleton extended his gloved hand towards her and she giggled when she laid her tiny hand into his.

“My name is Skulduggery. Can you say it? It’s a big word”

“Skaldugery!” she exclaimed exited, causing him to tilt his head smilingly and chuckle “Fair enough”

“Why don’t you come in?”, Gordon asked, politely opening the door to let his friend enter.

“Thanks. I was around and thought I may just give you some inspiration for a book of yours.”

“Is that so?”

“I just talked to a friend of mine, Saracen Rue, I am sure you heard of him”

“I heard about every Dead Men story there is”

“Perfect. Anyway, he told me about an epic battle with a certain Tanith Low and some other things she did that I thought may just be quite interesting for you to hear”

“Brilliant! Just brilliant! Except that…” he looked at Stephanie in his arms, “I may have promised her parents to not tell her any monster stories”

“She is looking at a living skeleton as we speak”

“Ah, but you’re not a monster. Monsters look way scarier than you do.”

“Thanks?” “Well, maybe we can keep her distracted for long enough so she won’t hear all the bloody details… Stephanie, do you like drawing?”

The little girl clapped her hands: “Yes!”

“Very well then… Mind holding her for just a bit?” Before Skulduggery could answer, Gordon already placed Stephanie into his arms and disappeared into his study.

“Well, hello there”, Skulduggery said softly.

“Hello”, she answered, grinningly.

“You are not afraid of me, are you?” She laughed and shook her head no, then grabbed the side of his hat and pulled on it.

“You like my head, don’t you? Well, I’m afraid it may just be a tad too big for you, don’t you say?” He gently placed it onto her head, covering almost all her face, before lifting it up and adjusting it again on his own head. She looked a bit confused at first, before laughing again right into his face. If he had a face, he would smile back, but she didn’t seem to mind that he couldn’t. Instead, she touched his cheek bone with her hand, examined how it felt compared to her own skin. Her face showed pure fascination.

“I see you two get along just fine” Gordon said once he re-entered the room.

“You have an adorable niece indeed. She has smart eyes too.”

“She surely is something special. She is an Edgley after all.”

“Stephanie, do you want to see something amazing?”

She nodded her head a few times, her face shining. Skulduggery used is free hand and snapped to summon a flame, then let it dance around his hands. The toddler’s mouth was wide open as she said “Wooooow”. Once the flame was gone, she demanded to see it again, and again, and again, in never ending astonishment.

“Okay, enough of that” Gordon said and Skulduggery was sure he detected a hint of jealousy in his voice as he took his niece back and placed her on the ground, equipped with some crayons and some paper. “Why don’t you draw something nice?”

She looked a bit disappointed at Skulduggery, but just a moment later started to draw on the paper while the two men sat down close enough to be watching her, yet far away enough to be out of her hearing range, and Skulduggery told him all about the mysterious Tanith Low and the wonders she committed. Gordon was more than just impressed, already forming ideas and formulation in his mind how to include all of this is his next book. They talked for quite some time, before Stephanie walked up to them with a finished masterpiece in her hand. She handed it Skulduggery full of excitement who felt a warm fuzzy feeling in his chest develop as he saw that she drew something that without a doubt resembled a skeleton in a suit, his hand on fire. Next to it, there was a man, most likely Gordon, and in the middle, there was a little person with black hair and a hat who covered half of it. He showed it to his friend, whose eye began to sparkle and water up a bit.

“This is very beautiful, Stephanie. Thank you”, Skulduggery said and picked her up a she reached with his arms towards him.

“I think you made yourself a new friend right there”, Gordon mumbled.

“Quite so. Well, why don’t you go take some notes for your book while I take care of her?”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. Look at her, she is adorable”

“Well, if you do want to make yourself useful, why don’t you feed her?”

“What do I know about food?”

“Just make sure she doesn’t choke on it”

“Well, that sounds easy enough. Are you hungry, little one?”

“Yes yes yes!” she proclaimed. He lifted Stephanie into his arms, carried her to the kitchen and looked around at what to prepare for her.

“So, uh, what do you like?”

“Spaghetti!”

“Really?”

“Pweeaassseee” she looked at her with her big, dark eyes and the next thing he knew is how he cooked whole package of spaghetti for her. Once done, he took the greatest care to cut them in tiny piece to make absolutely sure she would choke on them, then laid a kitchen cloth carefully over his suit to make sure she wouldn’t spill on it - it was an exquisite Ghastly Bespoke after all - then placed her into lap and fed her gently, until she yawned and leaned against his chest, her arms hugging his tie.

“Tired, aren’t you?” Weak nodding.

“Do you want me to sing you to sleep?” Nodding again, and so he gently began humming Mrs Jones while wrecking her back and forth in his arms. He stayed for two more hours, never letting her out of his arms. He forgot what is was like to have a baby, but being here now, with her, everything seemed to make sense again. Only when the sanctuary called him and demanded his immediate present, he reluctantly left her with Gordon again before whispering “We will see each other again, Stephanie”. Of course she didn’t hear him in her sleep, but for the rest of the night, the fuzzy feeling stayed. Before he left the mansion, Gordon handed him the picture she drew.

“Take it. Her parents would just question why, oh why she would draw a skeleton with a fire hand.”

“Thank you, Gordon. I’ll see you soon” With that, he wrapped his scarf around his head and walked back to his black Bentley.

 ** 23 years later **

 Valkyrie and Skulduggery sat on the Sofa at Skulduggery’s house, she was gently leaning on him, her hand on his chest, her head resting at the space where his neck would be if he had skin. She was glad to have her friend back, glad that he didn’t want to kill her anymore.

“Is it true what you said?”, she asked after a while, stopping the silence.

“I say a lot of wonderful things, Valkyrie”

“Did you really meet me when I was a baby?”

He laughed amused. “Oh, yes. You used to be so precious”

“I still am precious!”

“In a different way, yes”

“So you’ve basically known me all my life…”

“And you have adored me all your life”

“Of course you would say that”

“I can prove it too”

Skulduggery gently pushed her from him and got up, disappearing in upstairs. Valkyrie frowned. What kind of proof was he talking about?

He came back mere minutes later, holding a piece of paper in his hands and showed it to her.

“You drew this for me that night you were at Gordon’s”

“I did?” She gently took it, looked at the badly drawn skeleton with the fire hand, and a man that very well could have been Gordon. And then there was a mini version of her, wearing a hat that reminded her too much of a certain one she knew.

“Looks like I adored your hat more”

“You did like it a lot”

“And you kept this? It was ages ago, why would you do that?”

“Naturally I did, this may have been the cutest thing you ever done”

She smiled, tears filling her eyes.

“That means a lot, Skulduggery. It really does”

“I always knew you were special and that we would meet again. Little did I know that it took eleven years for that or what else would happen, but here we are.”

“And I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.” Skulduggery tilted his head and she knew he was smiling.

“I’m glad you say that. So, you’re with me again? Until the end?”

“Until the end.”

[valduggerystuff]

“Look at the face I don’t have, Craven, and tell me if it looks like I care."

Skukduggery Pleasant

[valduggerystuff]

MY HEART