Shameless ValDuggery fluff/touching.
Such trash I am.
Skulduggery rested his chin in his hand, flicking through the pages of his book. Valkyrie watched him, phone dead. Every minute or less, Skulduggery would turn the page, perfectly still except for his hand.
"How can you hear?"
He didn't look up from the book. "I feel like we've had this conversation before."
"No, really." Valkyrie sat up on the couch, leaned forward. "Because you have those tiny little bones in your ear, right? The ones names after drums."
"They're mainly named after hammers. I'm not sure where you pulled 'drums' from, but I admire the effort." He glanced up.
"All right, so magic or whatever keeps you alive—"
"If you call the magic behind one of the most unique, interesting specimens of this Earth 'whatever,' sure. Then I suppose your assessment would be accurate. Magic or whatever keeps me alive, sitting here, making fun of you. Judging you and your vocabulary."
Valkyrie waved her hand, waved away the banter. "But I've always thought that your magic works with your body. With your bones. How can you hear if you don't have your ear bones?"
Skulduggery hadn't turned the page, but he kept his gaze on the text. "The bones of the ear operate with soft tissue, of which I have a shocking lack of. It has to do with the inner and middle ear, liquid. The bones transmit the sound wave through the nerves to the cerebrum. Which," he reached up and tapped a finger against his temple, "I also have a shocking lack of."
Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. "Wait, so are you missing other bones?"
There was a silence Valkyrie didn't expect. Skulduggery turned the page in his book, and Valkyrie started to make a face.
"You're missing some?"
"I don't exactly ask you if you're missing any bones. In skeleton circles, in which I frequently travel, it's considered incredibly rude to ask a skeleton which bones he's missing. Inexcusably rude."
"Are you missing half a spine?" Valkyrie grinned. "Oh my God, what if you just have a broom handle instead of a spine? And you had to glue your ribs to it?"
"You seem to fundamentally misunderstand how ribs work."
"Oh, or a coat-rack!" Valkyrie laughed. "Can you imagine? Just your arms glued to the places where coats are supposed to hang?"
Skulduggery huffed. "Not that you would know the difference between a spine and a coat-rack."
"What? Yes I would. I challenge that." Valkyrie hesitated for just a moment. "Stand up."
"I'm researching."
"You challenged my honor, stand up."
Skulduggery heaved a sigh and stood, adjusting his tie. Valkyrie stood and walked around the coffee table, came to a stop in front of Skulduggery. She reached up and removed his hat, throwing it in his arm chair.
She tapped his forehead.
"Skull."
"You're off to an incredible start."
"Shut up." She tapped his chin. "Jaw bone."
"Mandible. One out of two. So far, I'm not impressed."
Valkyrie rolled her eyes, dug her finger into the knot if his tie, worked it down with difficulty. After a second, he batted her hands away and loosened the tie, hesitated, removed it. Valkyrie undid a few buttons of his shirt.
She bit her lip.
"Uh, collar bone?"
"Clavicle."
She ran her fingers along the collar bone, stopping when her fingers reached the edge of his shirt. They stood like that for a few seconds, until Skulduggery shrugged out of his suit jacket.
"All right, so I might be failing so far," Valkyrie said quickly, "but I actually know some more. Like, I think I took anatomy. Somewhere. I remember learning about bones before I met you. So, a while ago."
"I'm sure you paid attention in those classes. In fact," Skulduggery began to roll up the sleeves of his shirt, "I'm sure you didn't doze off in the back of the class at all, head lolling, drooling on your notes. I'm sure that information stuck with you all these years."
Valkyrie stared at his forearms, internally panicking. She had always mixed up these two. She reached out slowly, tapped the bone facing her on Skulduggery's arm. "Radius."
Skulduggery's head jerked back. "Surprisingly, correct."
Valkyrie grinned and tapped the second bone in his forearm. "Ulna, then. See? I'm still at fifty-fifty." She took one of his hands, observed them for a long moment. "Hand bones," she decided. "We also have what looks like a wrist bone." She rested the tips of her fingers against his. "Phalanges."
"How do you get up in the morning?" he asked, chuckling. "Dear God, Valkyrie. This is embarrassing for me to even watch. You've been around me for years and the best you can come up with is 'wrist bone.'"
"I got phalanges."
"By some miracle."
Valkyrie unbuttoned more of Skulduggery's shirt. "You're missing part of your ribs?" She ran her fingers over the tips of his ribs, where she was used to seeing them connect in diagrams. Not that she looked up skeleton diagrams.
"The thorax—its technical name—is made up of cartilage. That doesn't survive fire, unfortunately."
"Huh."
She let her fingers slip in between his ribs, and he inhaled sharply. Valkyrie pulled her hands away, backing up quickly.
"Shit, sorry! Did I hurt you?"
Skulduggery shook his head, hands coming up. "No, you didn't. I just didn't expect it." He cleared his throat, unrolled his sleeves. "We really do have work to be doing. As much as I love showing you my superior intellect when it comes to anatomy, that—"
"I bet you don't know muscles," Valkyrie blurted.
Skulduggery stopped, hand frozen midway through unrolling. He looked at her and cocked his head. "I know just about everything."
"Prove it."
Skulduggery nodded once, to himself. He walked towards her, gently turned her around, pressed against her, put his mouth by her ear.
One hand trailed down her arm, murmuring in her ear, "Deltoid, biceps, triceps, brachioradialis, extensor carpi ulnaris, extensor digitorum."
They stood like that for an endless moment, Skulduggery's mouth against her ear, one hand on her wrist, the other on her waist. Valkyrie's eyes wandered to the clock on the wall.
"We're late for the meeting."
Skulduggery jerked away from her. "Oh, well, that will be hard to explain."
