Disclaimed.
Valkyrie is twenty-six when she finally has enough and forces Skulduggery to drive for hours in search of the absolute, perfect Christmas tree. He argues with her on every point, explains why he absolutely refuses to allow a stupid holiday tree to desecrate his house with all its loose needles but finally, finally he relents.
(It's mostly to cheer her up after a run in with some vampires leaves a gaping chunk missing in her arm -Nye fixes it but it's the fact that she got eaten in the first place that bothers her.)
He of course sets ground rules, because it is still his house, and he still does hate Christmas. They go something like this:
1. No lights.
2. No ornaments.
3. No objects that look like ornaments.
4. No candles.
5. No ribbons.
6. No stockings.
7. No tinsel.
8. No popcorn strings.
9. No candy-canes.
And the one that Valkyrie deemed the most evilly in-human (and particularly Lord Vile-ques):
10. Absolutely No Santa Clauses.
Of course, Valkyrie, being Valkyrie follows none of these rules, and one day after a long day of working solo -Valkyrie had phoned him sounding absolutely dreadful, and probably feverish -he had come home to the most obnoxious tree to ever have been decorated on the face of the Earth. Tinsel everywhere, rainbow lights, ornaments hung by two's and three's on the same branches, and a big, fat, jolly looking man in red topping the whole thing- if he had eyes they would have most certainly burned upon seeing the damn thing.
He glares at it a full ten minuets waiting for Valkyrie to pop out laughing herself breathless. She doesn't, and he goes hunting for her, fully intent on making her take it all down and then lighting the tree on fire, just to shoe her his complete abhorrence for the commercially-twisted holiday.
he can't bring himself to do it though, when he finally finds her sprawled across his favorite meditation chair, the fire-place blazing in front of her. Her entire body shakes, and her face is entirely pale save for the splotches of red across her cheeks and nose, and the dark bags beneath her eyes. He almost recoils at the mound of tissues that lay around her but sighing her picks her up settles her on a couch and buries her in the dozens of blankets he's accumulated over the years.
He's gone when she wakes up but Valkyrie finds the tree still intact, as wells as a Luke-warm pot of soup on the stove, a glass of ginger-ale, and two cold medicine tablets for her to take.
She smiles when she finds he hasn't even touched the present that lay in the corner, but in his defense it had been shoved to the back, and buried beneath the tinsel, pine needles and over-stressed branches.
When Christmas finally rolls around he wastes no time in dismantling all of Valkyrie's work the day off, feeling that since the holiday had finally arrived there was no need to invite it to stay longer. he tries to ignore the urge to leave the tree for a while, as well as the bewildering realization that Valkyrie isn't at his elbow berating him for being such a "Grinch" at Christmas. (She's in France with her Family at Gordon's Villa, but it's the first time they've been properly separated in years, and he had forgotten why he had never stayed in his house too long. He didn't like the silence, even less since his return from the dimension of the Faceless ones.)
He finds the present- a thin-ish rectangular box- and stares at it for a long while. Inside he finds nothing but junk, but it's their junk. Memories upon memories that have made their relationship what it is today. There's a scarf Valkyrie crocheted some years back, having joined the club to spend time with her mum, a mug shot from when Davina Marr was still the Sanctuary Detective, the Bentley's right mirror from who-knows-how -long-ago, her old cell-phone, and a snapshot that had been taken of them- he doesn't know when it was taken, but on the back there is a note from Dexter Vex : 'Looks like you two are pretty cozy, Val. Remember the best way to a Skeleton's chest cavity is through his funny-bone.'
Vex never did have a gift for wit.
Under all the junk he does however, find a nice new silk tie, and some cheap but classy cuff-links. He carefully replaces everything and then puts the box in his closet next to his favorite hat.
When Valkyrie returns she finds a box waiting for her in the mail, in it she finds, a snap shot and letters form a younger Gordon to Skulduggery, a pair of antique looking silver earrings, a copy of Skulduggery's favorite book, and a new Imelda May CD.
It's almost enough to make her storm over to his house and demand that he admit to being madly in love with her, the only problem is, once she does that and if he actually admits, she's not sure where their relationship would go.
Loving a dead man was easy, she thinks, but loving your best friend was rocket science.