The idea had come when Skulduggery told her she had the day off. A day of meetings, he had said, and she would be bored out of her mind. Valkyrie hadn't protested, of course, because she knew he was right.
"I want to come to your place," she had said, "and I want to do something fun."
"I'll be in meetings at the sanctuary for most of the day," he reminded her, "I won't be home until evening."
"That's fine," Valkyrie had said, "I'll meet you there."
Skulduggery's last meeting was supposed to end around 5:30, and with the drive home, meant he would be back by six. Valkyrie left her house at five, admiring her mum's fall decorations on their porch as she went.
She made one stop on the way there, and after letting herself in with the spare key Skulduggery had given her, it took three trips to bring everything inside. Valkyrie decided, after some thinking, that the living room floor would be best and went to work, pushing the small coffee table out of the way and unfolding a plastic table cover over the carpet. Taking a few of the items she had bought out of their packaging and leaving the rest in the plastic bag, Valkyrie looked at her watch. 5:50.
It was at five minutes after six when she heard the car pull into the driveway. A door opened, then closed. A beep. Then keys jangled as the front door was unlocked, and Valkyrie sat up from her spot on the couch as Skulduggery Pleasant entered the living room. He was dressed in a slate grey suit today, with a matching waistcoat and his hat pulled low over his eye sockets. His keys were still in his hand and he had a folder under his other arm. He stopped when he entered, looking around the room.
"Hello," Valkyrie said.
"Valkyrie," Skulduggery responded, his velvet voice slow and measured, "why are there pumpkins in my living room?"
Valkyrie swung her legs off the couch and shrugged. "I said I wanted to do something fun."
He nodded slowly and she sighed. "My family carves pumpkins every year, and it's something I always looked forward to when I was younger. And now with Alice, it's just a blast. So I thought that it might be fun for us to do, too."
Skulduggery didn't say anything and Valkyrie shifted. She looked at him in his fancy suit with his fancy leather gloves, and suddenly realized how stupid this was.
"I see," Skulduggery said.
"You don't have to do one," Valkyrie added quickly, "if you're busy. That's fine. It's totally fine. No pressure."
"Did you do all of this yourself?" Skulduggery asked and she nodded.
"The plastic is for the carpet," she said, "and the bowl is for the insides. No mess, I promise."
Skulduggery set the folder and his keys down on a small desk next to him. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt."
Valkyrie nodded. "That's totally fine, I didn't expect you to…" She blinked. "Wait. What?"
"I said I suppose it couldn't hurt," Skulduggery repeated. "It's your day off, and you're here. We can do whatever you like. Within reason, of course."
Valkyrie felt a grin spreading slowly across her face. "Really?"
Skulduggery nodded. He took his coat off, folded it neatly, and laid it over the back of a chair. Valkyrie jumped from the couch, suddenly excited. "Are you ok with sitting on the floor?"
"Wherever you think is best."
She grinned and plopped herself on the ground, patting the space next to her. Skulduggery hesitated only for a moment, and then joined her, curling a long leg beneath him and stretching out the other. Valkyrie handed him a carving knife.
"What are you going to carve?" She asked.
"I'm not going to tell you. You'll have to wait and see."
Valkyrie frowned. "Well, that's not fair. I'll tell you what I'm carving."
"Really?"
"No. But that's only because I don't actually know what I want to do."
"And you want me to tell you what I'm doing so you can gain some inspiration?"
"Yeah, something like that."
"Well," Skulduggery said, "that's too bad."
He pressed the tip of the knife to the pumpkin and it entered with a hollow thump. He started sawing, measured and controlled, around the top of his pumpkin, and Valkyrie stared, amazed that this was even happening.
Skulduggery stopped and looked at her. "Are you going to start," he asked, "or stare at me for the whole evening?"
"I'm sorry. I just never thought I'd see you doing something like this."
"What can I say," he said, resuming his carving, "I'm full of surprises."
Valkyrie grinned and plunged her own knife into the top of her pumpkin, working the knife back and forth until she had cut a ring around the stem. Skulduggery already had the top off his by time Valkyrie pulled hers away, and he was looking inside at the seeds and guck that sat within.
"This may not have been the best idea," he announced, and Valkyrie frowned at him.
"Why?"
"The pumpkin will ruin my gloves."
"But you have so many other ones!"
"These ones," Skulduggery said, "are nicely broken in. And leather gloves, particularly the ones that I wear, are not cheap."
"I'll get you some that are cheap, then. Do you have rubber gloves anywhere?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"And I didn't buy any." Valkyrie paused. "You could just… take them off?"
Skulduggery looked at her.
"I'm doing it without gloves," she insisted, "and I'm going to be fine."
"You seem to forget that I don't have any skin. You practically already have on a pair of gloves."
"That's… kind of an unsettling way to look at it. It won't be for very long, though. You'll be fine."
Skulduggery seemed to think about it for a moment and then sighed. He tugged at each glove, pulling them off and placing them on the nearby desk before starting on rolling up his sleeves.
"I hope you appreciate what I'm doing for you," he said, "and don't stare at me. It's unsettling."
Valkyrie grinned and turned to her own pumpkin, giggling slightly when her hand grasped the slimy guts and throwing them into the bowl between them. They worked, going between silence and chatting, and then they finished emptying. Skulduggery sat back, observed the outside for a moment, and grabbed one of the sharpies Valkyrie had purchased. He tilted his pumpkin, starting on a stencil.
"What are you going to do?" Valkyrie asked.
"I am not," Skulduggery muttered, attention on whatever lines he was drawing, "going to tell you."
Valkyrie exaggerated a sigh and looked around the room for inspiration. What was something good to carve into a pumpkin? She had already done a standard cat with her family, so she couldn't do that one again. A witch? A zombie?
She got an idea. It wasn't a bad idea, and Valkyrie was fairly certain she could pull it off. Grinning, she grabbed her knife and stuck it in the pumpkin. Skulduggery glanced up from what he was working on.
"You aren't going to draw it out first?"
"No," Valkyrie said, "I know what I want to do."
Skulduggery grunted in amusement. Valkyrie glared at him. "What?"
"Nothing," he said. "Carve your pumpkin."
They worked for about an hour. Skulduggery took the first twenty minutes to map out what he wanted to do, and then set to work at an unhurried pace. Valkyrie took what she had in her head and went to town, transferring it into the pumpkin. Her arm was starting to ache when she sat back, satisfied.
Skulduggery sat his knife down. "Finished?"
Valkyrie looked at her pumpkin. "Yes," she said, confidently. "Are you?"
"I am. Would you like to go first?"
She shook her head. "No. You go."
Skulduggery spun his pumpkin around and Valkyrie stared at it.
"That's what you spent an hour on?"
"Yes."
"A whole hour?"
"Yes."
Valkyrie blinked. "It's so… simple."
Skulduggery tilted his head. "Is there something wrong with that?"
"No! I just thought there'd be… more."
Skulduggery's pumpkin was the classic jack o' lantern style, with the jagged smiling mouth, triangle nose, and slanty squinty eyes. It was crisp, clean, and sharp.
"I spent my time making it look nice," he said, "but if you're going to sit there and judge, I think you should show me yours."
"I'm not judging," Valkyrie said, defensive, "I like it."
"Yours. Now."
She looked at him. "Ok. It's very cool. Are you ready?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"I am."
"Really?"
"Yes, Valkyrie."
"Ok. Here it is."
She spun her pumpkin around, replacing the top with a haphazard thunk. Skulduggery didn't say anything.
"It's you," Valkyrie stated.
"Ah."
She glared at him. "Ah?"
"It's wonderful," he added quickly. "And what is that there, towards the top?"
"Your hat."
"Oh. Of course." There was a pause. "And why do I look angry?"
"You're not angry. I was just- I don't know. I was trying to make you look cool."
There was another hesitation. "It's wonderful," he said again.
Valkyrie leaned back and crossed her arms, still glaring at him. "You hate it."
His hands were up now. "No! No, not at all. It's wonderful."
"Three times. Three times you've said 'it's wonderful,' so either you're just so speechless at my skills that you can't think of anything else to say or you can't think of anything to say because you think it's horrible."
Skulduggery nodded. "The first one."
"You're never speechless."
"And there's a first time for everything. Congratulations."
Valkyrie glared at him some more. Skulduggery held her gaze for a moment, and then sagged.
"Consider," he said, trying to salvage the moment, "before you get any more defensive, that some of the most priceless art is also some of the most puzzling."
Her eyebrow raised. "Puzzling?"
"Not puzzling," Skulduggery corrected, "artistic. Unique. Avant-garde. You may not have captured my likeness, but you've certainly captured the essence."
"The essence of what? Halloween?"
"Precisely."
Valkyrie looked at Skulduggery's carving and then spun hers around and looked at it too. She shrugged. "I suppose it is pretty horrifying."
He nodded once and sat back against the couch. "That's the spirit."
She stood. "Alright then," she said, "on to the next part. Let's get to it."
Skulduggery looked up at her and his head tilted slightly. "Let's get to what, exactly?"
She grinned at him. "Since you think they're so wonderful, we have to put them on the porch, of course."
He was quiet for a moment. "On my porch?"
"Yes, on your porch. And then we've got to put a candle in them and make them all pretty."
"On my front porch."
"Where else would we put them?"
"In your trunk, I presumed."
"Absolutely not. They're going on your porch, and if you don't stand up right now to help me, I'm going to throw this bowl at you. You'll be picking pumpkin guts from your skull for the next week."
"That's quite the threat. May I at least go wash my hands first?"
She looked at her hands and then at his. There was pumpkin residue sticking to them both, and the white of his bones was tinged orange. She hadn't thought about the color.
"Yeah," she said, "I guess that's alright."
Skulduggery nodded and stood. "You're so kind."
"I know."
He disappeared into the kitchen and Valkyrie heard the sink turn on. His gloves were still sitting on the table. She stayed there for a moment and then grabbed them, walking to the kitchen and stopping in the entryway. Skulduggery had the brush she used to scrub dishes and was gently sweeping it against the phalanges of his left hand.
His head turned to her slightly and she held his gloves up.
"Ah," he said, turning his attention back to what he was doing, "thank you. I had left them there so I didn't get pumpkin on the leather."
Valkyrie looked down at her hand holding the gloves and realized how sticky it was. "Oh."
She set them down.
He laughed. "They're probably fine. I have others I can use, if I must."
She watched him for a moment as Skulduggery switched hands. He ran his fingers under the water, peered at them, gave them a soft scrub, and then repeated. It was all very methodical, she thought, and incredibly too much work.
"Why are you doing that?"
His head tilted but he didn't look at her. "Doing what?"
"Using the scrub brush. You realize I wash dirty dishes with that?"
"I am aware. But it was the only brush I had at my disposal." He held his hand up slightly. "I have a few more crevices than you do, and they can be relatively difficult to clean."
Valkyrie frowned. She hadn't thought about that.
Skulduggery ran his hand under the faucet and peered at it again, then gave a satisfied grunt and turned the water off. Valkyrie watched as the moisture lifted from his bones and dropped into the basin. He took a step back, gesturing at the sink, and they switched places.
She gave her hands a quick rinse as he pulled the gloves on. The water was freezing.
Valkyrie patted her hands dry on the towel hanging on the oven handle and then turned, satisfied. "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be. Lead the way."
They walked out into the living room and Valkyrie wrapped her arms around her pumpkin, grunting slightly as she picked it up. She turned to Skulduggery and her eyes widened.
"That's cheating!"
The pumpkin was floating gently in the air and Skulduggery had his hand raised, fingers curled slightly.
"There is pumpkin on my gloves already," he said, "I'm not about to ruin this shirt, too."
"They're not ruined," Valkyrie grumbled, and then sighed. "At least grab the lighter and the candles. They're in the bag."
He did as she asked, and followed her out onto the porch. She set her pumpkin down with a hollow thump, and then reached back inside to flick the porch lights off and close the door. Skulduggery gently placed his pumpkin next to hers. They were left in a murky darkness, the only light coming from the single street lamp down the road. He handed Valkyrie a candle and they were quiet for a moment.
"Well," Skulduggery said, "I suppose I can go first."
He lit the candle in his hand, stepping forward and set it gently into his pumpkin, replacing the top and stepping out of Valkyrie's way. She admired it for a moment. Valkyrie had to admit- it did look very cool. The clean lines and sharp angles glowed eerily in the darkness and the flickering flame of the candle sent out jagged shadows onto the porch. Simple and sophisticated. It was so very much Skulduggery.
Valkyrie turned her attention to her own pumpkin, using a lighter to start her candle. The bottom of her pumpkin wasn't very smooth, so it took her a moment to get the candle situated, and then it took her a moment more to spin the top of the pumpkin, trying to figure out how it was supposed to go in. When it finally did, Valkyrie stepped back next to Skulduggery and took them in.
She had thought that the darkness and the candle might have salvaged her pumpkin slightly, making it look edgy or something. It did not. If anything, she thought, it made the thing worse.
Skulduggery made a little noise next to her and she peered at him in the gloom. He wasn't looking at her, the orange glow reflecting off his skull, and she could see his shoulders moving.
She frowned. "Are you laughing?"
"No," came the terse reply.
Her brow furrowed. "I think you are."
"I assure you," he said, and she could practically feel the laughter in his voice, "I am not. It looks…"
"Wonderful?" She prompted, and he looked at her.
"Sure."
She glowered a little and looked back at her pumpkin. A grin started to creep across her face. "It kind of looks like Walter White from Breaking Bad."
"I'm not sure what that is."
"It's a television series. About meth."
"Is it good?"
She shrugged, a smile fully on her face now. "I don't know. I've never seen it."
"Well," Skulduggery said, "that pumpkin certainly looks like it's on drugs." He held his hands out. "I guess it's a good thing I stayed on the straight and marrow."
Valkyrie froze, her jaw dropping open and she stared at him. "Did you just make a bone pun?"
He hesitated. "I did. I regret it."
Valkyrie howled with laughter and grabbed his arm to keep upright. Skulduggery, for his part, shook his head.
"Straight and marrow," Valkyrie gasped, "it's not even that funny."
"Then why are you laughing?"
"Because it came from you!"
"I AM a comedic genius."
She laughed harder.
"You can stop laughing any time now."
"Ok," she gasped, "ok."
Valkyrie took a few deep breaths, and when she was sure she wasn't going to keel over with laughter again, grinned at Skulduggery.
"So does that mean that you had a good time?"
"Is making bad jokes a measurement of how much one enjoyed an activity?"
"No. But it's definitely a sign."
Skulduggery shrugged. "Then I suppose I did."
Valkyrie felt herself glow a little inside and looked back at the two pumpkins sitting on the porch. They stood there for a bit. It was quiet. There was no childlike squealing from Alice, no dad jokes, no roasted seeds waiting for them when they went back inside. But Valkyrie didn't need that. This was nice, all on its own. And then Valkyrie rubbed her arms.
"It's cold," she said.
"Is it?" Skulduggery responded. "Would you like to go back inside?"
She nodded and he led the way, holding the door open for her. The house was warm and the smell of pumpkin hung in the air as she entered the living room. It reminded her so much like home, with her family, but it was a different sort of comfort. Just as good, she thought, because Skulduggery's house had become just as much of a home to her over the years.
He stood behind her. "What now?"
She shrugged, bringing herself out of her reverie. "Usually my family watches movies at this point, but…"
"But?"
"We don't have to do that."
"We do have some cleaning to get done. If you would like to put something on the television, go right ahead."
She looked at him, surprised, as he walked around her. "Are you ok?"
Skulduggery glanced at her. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"I don't know. I just didn't expect you to be into this."
He shrugged. "It's your night off. I told you we can do whatever you like."
"Ok then. How about the Charlie Brown one- 'The Great Pumpkin'?"
"Wonderful. So long as you promise to help me clean up and let no pumpkin fall on the carpet."
He knelt, and Valkyrie was struck for a moment by how much she appreciated his friendship. She grinned. "I promise."
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It's a little past Halloween, I know! I just forgot to post this.