This is a late birthday gift for a friend.

This is a sort of 'missing scene' for LSODM (with a lot of fluff, because we need it after that book)

(god it's been so long since I wrote SP fic)

Enjoy!

"Are you still awake?"

There was a groan from the pile of blankets Valkyrie had encased herself in. Without uncovering herself, she muttered,

"How'd you know?"

She heard Skulduggery make an amused nose from the back of the throat he didn't have. "I'll take that as a yes. As for your question, you've been tossing and turning for hours."

The eighteen year old shifted in her blankets. "Maybe I just sleep like that," she countered.

"Valkyrie, I've known you for six years. You sleep like the dead." He paused. "Don't make that into a joke about skeletons."

"You're no fun." She shifted onto her other side, still encased in her cocoon. He was right, though. She'd been trying to sleep for hours.

There was a moment of quiet, and then Skulduggery again, his voice soft.

"Are you … thinking about something?"

Valkyrie felt herself pale. "Yeah," she said, softly.

She heard Skulduggery shift. Everything seemed to be amplified in this tent – she could hear the rustle of his suit's fabric. "Darquesse?"

She swallowed. "Yeah. Well. Kind of, I guess?" She pressed her face against the ground, wanting the subject to change already.

A pause. "…What does that mean, exactly?"

"Nothing," she said, feeling her ears get warmer. "Good night."

"Good night," he replied, a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

Valkyrie shifted again, suddenly feeling suffocated. She pulled her blankets away and stared up at the canvas ceiling of her tent.

It was a magic tent, obviously. Not bigger on the inside – that would have been awesome – but invisible.

And soundproof.

"Have you," she started, and then swallowed, forcing herself to look up and not at Skulduggery. "Have you ever thought about … that kiss we saw, in the visions?"

"Ghastly and Tanith?" he asked. "Not really, honestly."

Valkyrie felt her face flush, mortified. Obviously. Obviously he hadn't even – it didn't even count as a kiss, did it? He didn't even have lips.

But she had taken too long to respond, and Skulduggery – as always – had figured out what she was thinking.

"Oh," Skulduggery said, quietly, as the thought occurred to him. "You mean … ours."

Valkyrie pressed her face into her pillow, really hoping she was dreaming.

"Not ours," he corrected himself, quickly. "Darquesse's and I's. Well, Darquesse and my head. I'm not actually sure how conscious I was at the time. Or alive, for that matter."

Mortified or not, Valkyrie could tell when Skulduggery Pleasant was nervous.

"…So you have thought about it." She said, forcing her voice to sound casual.

"…Yes," he admitted, sounding vaguely embarrassed. "Do you, uh, want to … talk about it?"

"No," she said, immediately. "No, I mean … no."

"You're the one who brought it up," Skulduggery replied, almost defensively.

"I mean – I was-" Valkyrie turned her head into her pillow and made a frustrated noise. "Shut up."

"I didn't say anything."

"I know," she said, exasperated. "So just shut up."

"Valkyrie-"

"Just pretend I didn't say anything."

"You shouldn't feel ashamed-"

"Please stop talking."

"-as it wasn't even you-"

"Please," she said, cringing.

"-and even if it was…"

She sat up suddenly, head whipping around to look at him.

He seemed to recoil slightly from her gaze. "It wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing," he finished, quieter.

"You think I want to kiss you?"

"Do you?" Skulduggery asked, his tone changing, voice level and betraying no emotion.

"No," she answered immediately. She suddenly realized they were sitting very close together. "I mean. I don't know. I haven't kissed you before, so how would I…"

"Right," Skulduggery said. "Right, of course."

"We could," she said, and then wanted to take the words and shoved them back into her mouth. "I mean, just. Just as a test. I mean, if I kissed you and it was horrible and I hated it, then I'd never do it again, and the vision would never happen-"

"…Horrible," Skulduggery echoed, voice cool.

"I don't mean it like that," Valkyrie said, even though she did and God there was nothing more she wanted than to hate the idea of kissing him. "I just mean it's a possibility."

"It is," he agreed, voice still carefully neutral.

She didn't think he was that fond of the idea of kissing her and she felt her stomach twisting and she suddenly wanted to cry.

"I don't think we ever kissed," she said, quietly, almost apologizing. "In that future. I think she was …" she felt the grave she was digging getter deeper by the second "Making fun of me. Doing something I hadn't done. Something I couldn't do."

His skull tilted towards her. "So if we kissed," he started.

"…Then I guess the future changes no matter what."

"I see."

"Yeah," she said lamely, tugging at her hair.

She looked at him, and he looked at her, and nothing was happening and she had no idea what to do.

"Uh, are we going-" she started.

"Maybe you should-"

"What am I supposed to-"

"For God's sake, Valkyrie," Skulduggery began, and it sounding like a lecture and that was not something she needed to hear right now, so she grabbed him by the collar of his coat, that coat completely unlike those fine suits he normally wore but she loved nearly as much, and pressed her mouth against his teeth.

She closed her eyes.

Her breath caught.

It was not horrible.

After a moment passed and she had yet to move away in repulsion, she felt Skulduggery's glove hands hesitantly move to her face, pushing her hair back, his right thumb tracing her cheek.

It was definitely not horrible.

She pulled away, her lip lightly catching on his teeth. She ran a hand through her hair, playing with it, feeling his gaze on her but not sure what to do with it, not knowing what she could do with it.

"Thank you," Skulduggery said, softly, "for not removing my head."

Valkyrie burst out laughing. "Not this kiss, at least."

"And hopefully not the next," he said, his skull tilting towards her.

"Or the one after that," she replied, looking down.

"Or the one thereafter."

"Or the one afterwards."

"Or the one subsequently."

"Or the one …" She frowned. "I've run out of ways to say that."

"Fair enough," Skulduggery said, cupping her chin. "I think we have more important things to do anyway."

Valkyrie smiled, and kissed him again, and again, and with every kiss, tried to imagine erasing that vision bit by bit.

All that really mattered, though, was the here and now.