It was dark, and Valkyrie was trudging home after a tough day's work. Despite her tiredness, however, her spirits were slightly higher than they'd been the day before. Every day brought them a tiny bit closer to the skull, and although she was still missing Skulduggery and worrying about him constantly, it was good to know that they were making progress.

Haggard was deserted, and strangely eerie-looking in the glow of the streetlights. The rain had stopped a few hours ago, but it had left everything shining. It reminded her of something Fletcher had said once. Something about rain and streetlights... She shook her head, annoyed at herself. Why did he keep coming into her head?

'It's quite pretty up here. All the streetlights. The rain makes everything kind of glitter, doesn't it?'

That had been it.

Not that it mattered.

Strange thing for him to say, though. It was kind of poetic. He'd definitely never struck her as a poetic person.

Not that she cared.

She sighed. After an exhausting day filled with non-stop thinking and planning, there was nothing more she wanted than to clear her brain of all thoughts, but that clearly wasn't happening. This whole stupid thing with Fletcher was always at the back of her mind, creeping to the front whenever she didn't have anything more important to think about.

I don't like him, she thought in a determined attempt to put a stop to the nonsense once and for all. I really, really don't like him with an extremely strong and powerful dislike bordering on hatred. He's annoying, he's stupid, he's arrogant, and when all this is over and we have Skulduggery back he'll go off and I'll never have to see him again and that'll be the end of it.

She blinked.

Was that really going to happen?

Did she really want that to happen?

No, she didn't.

Yes, she did.

Why did everything have to be so bloody confusing?

Something hit her in the back of the head.

She whirled around just in time to see a packet of Skittles bounce off her and land on the ground. Fletcher Renn stood there, grinning.

'Taste the rainbow,' he said.

She stared at the Skittles, then back at him. 'What the hell?'

He shrugged. 'Well, it got your attention, didn't it? They're for you, by the way, in case you didn't realize.'

'You are so weird,' she said, and picked them up. 'Thank you, by the way.'

'You're welcome.'

She started walking in the direction of her house, and he fell into step beside her. 'Going home?'

'Eh, yeah.'

'It's a bit late, isn't it? What'll your parents say?'

She sighed. 'They're not in. They've gone to Galway for the weekend.'

'So you have a free house?'

She frowned. 'I don't like where this is going.'

He laughed. 'Relax. I was just wondering if... well... ' He trailed off.

Suddenly, she realized. 'You don't have anywhere to sleep tonight, do you?'

He said, 'Well, I could just go to a random hotel, but I've been kicked out of all the ones I know, so I'd have to find a new one, and that could take me a while, and it's late, and...'

She sighed. 'Go on, then. You can have the spare room. You are so lucky my parents are out.'

He beamed. 'You're the best, you know that?'

She was glad it was dark and he couldn't see her blushing. 'Yeah, I get that a lot.'

'I'm sure you do,' he said solemnly.

'You just got me the Skittles to sweeten me up, didn't you? I think you could do better than that next time. Like maybe a yacht.'

He laughed. 'I'll keep that in mind. But they weren't a bribe, I promise. I just bought them for you out of the goodness of my heart.'

'Yeah, sure. Whatever.'

'And you should eat them, or else I'll get offended.'

She sighed again, and opened the packet. 'Well, we can't have that.'

He grinned. 'Exactly.'

She took a handful and put them in her mouth, then offered him the packet. He said, 'Aww, you're sweet,' and took some, and they were silent for a while.

'So did it work?' he asked after a while.

'Oh, so you did have an ulterior motive,' she responded archly. 'The goodness of your heart, my arse.'

'If wanting to get into your good books counts as an ulterior motive, then yes I did.'

'And why do you want to get into my good books? Oh yeah, so that I'll offer you a place to stay for the night. That definitely counts as an ulterior motive as far as I'm concerned.'

'Well,' he said slowly, 'that was part of it.'

She popped another Skittle into her mouth - a yellow one - and asked curiously, 'So what was the rest of it?'

She saw his eyes flicker to hers in the dark. 'Well... we haven't been getting on too well lately, have we?'

'Why do you say that? Because I want to strangle you most of the time?'

He laughed. 'Well, yeah. That's why I bought you the Skittles. As kind of like a peace offering or something.'

She exhaled. 'Fair enough.'

'So did it work?'

'I suppose it did.'

'And obviously you're doing me a huge favour by letting me stay in your house,' he went on with an angelic smile. 'I'm very very grateful.'

'Don't overdo it.'

He laughed. 'Okay. Your tongue's blue by the way.'

'From the Skittles? That's not supposed to happen!'

They had reached her house. Valkyrie stopped at the gate and frowned at the empty packet of Skittles in her hand.

He laughed again. 'Well, you were eating them like twelve at a time.'

'Is it on my teeth?'

'No. But it's on your lips. You must have licked them or something.'

She glared at him playfully. 'Now look what you've done.'

He laughed. 'It's only a bit of blue stuff, it's not poisonous.'

'I probably look like I've been shifting a Smurf.'

'Shifting?'

She sighed. 'It's an Irish thing. Look it up.'

'Here, I've got some tissues,' he said unexpectedly, and pulled them out of his pocket. She took one and dabbed at her lips.

'It's not working,' Fletcher said unhelpfully.

Valkyrie's brain suddenly decided to go on holiday. 'Fine then,' she said, 'you do it.'

As soon as the words left her mouth she wanted to take them back, but he just smirked. 'All right then,' he said, taking the tissue off her and proceeding to scrub her mouth with it. She couldn't help laughing.

He kept at it for about half a minute, occasionally brushing her lips with his fingers, and for some reason she was sure he was doing it on purpose even though he was wearing the most innocent expression she'd ever seen him wear. Her heartbeat sped up. How she hated him.

'Done,' he said.

She rolled her eyes. 'That was completely unnecessary, but thank you.'

He tried to look wounded. 'All the things I do for you and you never appreciate them.'

She suddenly got a closer look at the tissue in his hand. 'Wait a minute... that tissue's clean. My lips weren't blue at all, were they?'

He laughed. 'Gotcha.'

'I hate you.'

'Oi! What about my peace offering?'

'I'll tell you where you can shove your - '

'Is this your house key?' he interrupted, taking it out of her hand. 'Excellent.' He unlocked the door and held it open for her. 'Ladies first.'

She sighed and walked past him into the house.

A/N: Okay, I know that was not very accurate Skittlewise (as far as I'm aware, they don't stain your tongue... but raspberry bonbons do. And so do those seriously hardcore sour lollipops that make your mouth feel like it's on fire.) Artistic licence?
Also, even if your lips DID get stained blue from eating Skittles, I don't know if you could get rid of it using a tissue. But enough about me getting things wrong.
I know this is technically a romance story, but I'm actually trying to stick with canon for once, so it's just leading up to the moment where they actually kiss in Dark Days. So basically, nothing is going to happen. (Hahaha, I can just see your outraged faces...) Don't worry, there will be fluff and, you know, discovering of feelings type stuff. Just no actual snogging. You can live with that, can't you? xD
Anyway, thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! :DD