@fulgcr // mild bedlam spoilers !!!

He doesn’t move. Not for anything-- not with Valkyrie splayed across him, like some... overgrown lapdog.He doesn’t want to risk a poorly placed rib or a jabbing collar bone to disturb her, to make her move away from his body, & he certainly does not wish to push her away or make her slip off.So he is still-- still as he can be, a corpse moving about as much as one should,empty sockets staring up, up at the ceiling in stunned silence. Had he a heart, it would be racing, & if he’d any blood? It would have flooded to his cheeks, to his ears long ago. Thank goodness his facade isn’t up.(Quiet, Skulduggery. Easy. Do not say anything to offend--)“So, this is how I die again, Crushed to death by my own partner? Not at all the ending I’d expected.”

for some reason, neither.

@fulgcr // liked !!

 There’s the sound like the clearing of a throat,   As the Skeleton rocks back on his heels, (bare hands tucking into his pockets.)    “ Erm, ah--- Valkyrie-- “ There’s a certain hesitance to his voice,   unfamiliar & strange, like he’s hiding something.   But there’s also the hint of a smile in the way his shoulders sit back, in the way his body refuses to keep absolutely still.  ( whatever it was he was hiding, he was excited about it. That much was clear. )   “ Got ah.. somethin’ outside--- package for you.   Odd. Must’ve been a, erm... late holiday gift or something.       Weird. Figured I should let you know. “  ( It’s his gift to her-- a month late, granted, but a gift nonetheless. She’d needed a car, hadn’t she? & Skul was happy to oblige. )

“You look like you could go for another round.” The voice that speaks is like the rolling of thunder,  a rumbling, rasping thing that shakes the very earth below & growls deep within the god, (like a wild animal, snarling in the pit of his chest.) A voice charming & enticing, & not altogether bothered or rushed in any way, as HADES sidles up to the bar top. One hand is placed against the cool counter,  (a flash of two rings: a skull & a wedding band) & he’s seated himself next to the woman. The bar is dark, but the man keeps his sunglasses on regardless, & in the biting cold of the building, he pulls his coat tight around him. (The surface was different from down below... Whereas Hadestown was sweltering, it seemed everywhere he wandered atop the earth chilled him to the bone.)  The fiery heat was bearable. The bitter frost up here was not. Pity he didn’t care to accept that he was the one to blame for such a devastating cold spell. Had Persephone been allowed another week up above, the cold front might not’ve come so quickly.  The bartender whisks by,  & the   g o d   lifts his hand-- catches his eye, doesn’t say a thing & yet manages to get his point across: another round. For him & this stranger whom he has decided to prey upon. The mortals... they were easy. They were barely even fun. Don’t even ask him why he still made deals with them for sport. Persephone might be the real drinker here, but if control was a substance, Hades was abusing it.  & yet, there’s something different about this one. He can feel it-- he just can’t put his finger on what it is exactly.  “Do excuse an old man for pointing it out,    but you look like you’ve just been to    h e l l  &  b a c k   a g a i n. ”

After the knock, he waited patiently and kind of uncomfortably on the roof, he couldn’t really sit down though, he was all ready in a position to pull himself into her room. He just hoped she’d get to the window faster, his arms and legs were starting to hurt.

Silence stretches on like the long night ahead of them, & despite it once being a comfort, (A testament to their comfortably) Skulduggery finds, these days, that it sits more like a burden upon his shoulders. Gloved hands grip, tight, to the Bentley’s steering wheel,  as his foot works the gas (keeps them at an even speed) down the vast expanse of empty road before them. As much as he’d like it to, even the gentle hum of the car’s engine can’t drown out his thoughts. (They buzz, like hornets) bouncing off every wall of his skull, filling his head with such horrible things. Fears, doubts, anger-- cold, dead resign.  (More so than usual.) “Valkyrie--” He doesn’t know where he finds the courage to speak, doesn’t know what part of his cursed form has boiled up these words, (her name.) Suddenly, he prefers the silence. & he wonders if she does, too. “It’s---         You need to stay here.                 In Ireland.”   His words are poison, sticky, pasting themselves to the insides of his teeth. & then they’re spilling out, in great globs, all selfishness & hidden  w o r r y.  What would he do without her?         “Your--   Your family. Your mother & father-- Alice? They need you.   Now more than ever.”    He needs you.        “I know, it’s been... hard.     After everything that’s happened, it’s hard, I know-- But...  Valkyrie, you can’t go back to America. You can’t go back there alone.  This is your home. It always has been.”