"Skulduggery. Skulduggery. Psssssst, Skulduggery. Hello. Hello?"

"Shh."

"Don't shush me. Talk to me, I'm bored."

"Valkyrie, we're staking out a criminal. This isn't boring. This is important work we're doing. You shouldn't be bored."

"Okay, I know and I appreciate that, but this guy's just sitting in his house eating… what is that? A hamburger?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yeah, what kind of stuff do you think that hamburger has on it?"

"I don't think it matters."

"Do you think it has mustard, because I don't like mustard. It's yellow and tastes like…something bad. Yuck."

"It does not matter."

"It does though, because if it's a hamburger so stuffed full he can't even hold it, and it doesn't have any mustard, I'm gonna ask him very nicely if he'll share with me. You know, because it's too big for just one person. Common sense, obviously."

"Obviously. Is this your roundabout way of telling me you're hungry?"

"To be honest, I wasn't hungry until I saw that hamburger, but now that you mention it: yeah."

"I told you to bring food, didn't I? I distinctly remember telling you to bring food."

"You said we 'might be out for a while' and that I 'might get hungry' so I brought… wait, shit what did I bring? Oh, I brought these awful crackers. If you'd told me we were going on a twelve-hour stakeout, I would have come better prepared."

"The crackers will do just fine then."

"No, they won't, okay. Look at these crackers. Look how shitty they are, Skulduggery. You can't let me live like this."

"I think you'll make it through somehow."

"You're the worst. Why didn't you bring food?"

"I'm a skeleton, I don't have any food."

"Not true, you have a kitchen full of food for me. You could've brought something from there."

"Shh, shh, he's moving. Grab those binoculars and tell me what he's doing."

"Okay. It looks like he's…? He's picking up the phone and…yeah, he's dialing it. And now he's talking on the phone. Well, that seems like it be helpful, too bad we have no way of hearing what he's saying. If only we were…closer. Closer… to where he's standing…by the table… by…the hamburger…."

"Focus, Valkyrie."

"Right. Okay, so he's picking something up now. It looks…like… oh my god. Oh, my god."

"What? What is it?"

"It's a takeout menu. You're shitting me. He is literally ordering more takeout. If we actually get to fight him, I'm gonna kill him."

"…Remind me never to take you out when you're hungry."

"I could've told you that earlier."

"Skulduggery, can you open your mouth a bit. And look over at me."

"No."

"Please, it's important. It's actually life or death."

"All right, but I'm… I'm afraid to—"

"Yes! Oh my god, I made it!"

"Valkyrie, did you…did you just? Did you just throw a cracker into my mouth?"

"Yeah. It's the only thing these inedible crackers can be used for, so yeah, I did, and it fell right out. It fell right through."

"…"

"…"

"You can stop laughing now."

"No, I can't."

"I wish you'd try."

"I really can't though, because it's four in the morning and you know I don't make sense after I've been awake this long. I blame you."

"I see, it was my mistake. Are you finished now?"

"Yeah. Phew, yeah I'm done. But before we go back home in a couple hours, we gotta buy some marshmallows. I wanna see which of us can catch one between our teeth first."

"What's it like to live for so long?"

"You're asking the man who died years ago?"

"You know what I mean. I'm just curious. And also I ran out of crackers."

"Ah. Well, it's…difficult. It's long. It's life, I suppose."

"Now you're not making sense."

"It's hard to sum up hundreds of years. You do a lot of things. Some bad, some good. You go a lot of places. You meet a lot of people. Mortals, mages… And sometimes those people die. Or you have to leave them. But you keep on living."

"Oh, that's…that's kind of awful."

"My apologies. Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's just—I'm gonna live a long time, too, because of magic. Obviously. And I'm gonna be as old as you one day. And I'm, I'm gonna leave my family behind… Oh, god. Wow, that's, uh, it's kind of scary to think about it…."

"Valkyrie."

"Y-yeah?"

"Would you like me to order you some takeout?"

"Please, oh my god."

"Valkyrie?"

"…Hmm?"

"Don't fall asleep, we're on a stakeout. Two sets of eyes are better than one. Actually, technically only one set of eyes, but—"

"Shhh. I'm just gonna sleep for… a little bit…."

"All right. He doesn't seem to be moving anyhow. Do you need a blanket? A bed time story?"

"Yes…to both…"

"Ah. Here."

"Your jacket is cold."

"That's too bad. I don't have a story either."

"You're… the worst…"

"Goodnight, Valkyrie."

"G'night."

"Valkyrie, wake up. Wake up."

"What? Ugh, what time is it?"

"It's almost eight in the morning. Ghastly just called."

"Oh, yeah? Did he tell us we're doing a fine job of watching a guy eating an almost inhuman amount of hamburgers? Here's your jacket, by the way."

"Almost. He told us we've been watching the wrong man."

"What?"

"Yes, it's quite silly actually, we just got the address wrong. The real man we're looking for is just around the corner."

"I'm… going to kill you."

"Wonderful. I'll drop you off at your home, you can sleep for a reasonable amount of time, I will gather food for you tonight, and then I'll pick you up at midnight. Perhaps bring a pillow this time so you don't drool on my suit jacket. All right?"

"I…It's a good thing I like you."

"Hm. A good thing, indeed."