Written 2013 - December - 12.

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There is a room. The room is not empty. The room contains a boy.

It also contains silence. The lack of sound is aggressive, leaning heavily on the space and its contents. There is no movement in the air, no tiny changes in the atmosphere.

The boy is not dead, but the boy is not breathing. He has no heart to beat, no blood, no skin, no flesh.

The boy is not dead.

He shares the room with the quiet.

The emptiness fills his head. He would never have said that the lack of a sound was a sound in and of itself, but somehow, it is. It deafens him, pins him still where he leans against the wall. He has no muscle, no sinew, but theoretically, he could move. In actual practice, there is something stopping him, and that is the stillness.

He does not have ears. The silence roars

rushing

tugging

impermeable

stops.

The room has a door. The door is opened. A girl steps in, thin, tanned fingers tugging the room back into its closed-off shape.

The room has two occupants; the girl has displaced the silence.

"Hello," she says after a long moment spent only staring at the boy. "I'm Stephen. You're a skeleton."

"Hello, Stephen," the boy says, shifting himself to stand a little higher against the wall so that he looms just a little over the girl. "My name is Skulduggery."

The girl doesn't giggle. It's not really something she does. She snorts a brief little laugh, though, and raises her eyebrows. "Seriously?" she asks in a lyrical accent. "You're a skeleton named Skulduggery?"

"Believe it or not," the boy says, shifting again because the girl is tall, "the name came before the transformation."

"Right," says the girl. "Skulduggery."

"At least my name suits me," Skulduggery says with a sniff. "Stephen comes from a word for crown, and you'll forgive me for saying you don't seem like much of a king."

"The word meant wreath too," Stephen answers mildly, crossing her arms and smiling wide. "And if you know me for a while, you'll soon learn I'm a victor."

"Oh, great," Skulduggery says, giving up on his nonchalant posture to stand up straight and wave his hands in a loose, excitable gesture. "Masculine bravado!"

"I am very brave," Stephen acknowledges with a calm nod.

"Oh, really? Because I had you pinned more for a flighty type."

Stephen closes her eyes and counts to ten. "Don't go there," she says when she's done.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Skulduggery says doggedly, "Your opening with 'you're a skeleton' didn't really tip me off as to the fact that talking about our physical peculiarities was going to be off limits."

"Shut up," Stephen says evenly, "shut up, shut up, shut up."

"Or what?" Skulduggery asks, smooth tenor voice inching steadily higher. "Are you going to make me, angel?"

The door to the room opens, and then there are three.

"Boys, boys, boys," the newcomer says from the doorway, looking in with icy blue eyes and a thin red smile, "please, don't waste your energy fighting if it's not over me."

"Sorry to upset your delicate sensibilities," Stephen says coolly.

"We were just discussing Stephen's wings," Skulduggery says.

"We actually weren't," Stephen answers.

"We were, actually, but all that's in the past now," Skulduggery says. "Why talk about the winged angel in the room when there's a succubus straight from Hell?"

"Do you want me to hit him for you?" Stephen asks. "Defend your honor, kind of thing? It would be an absolute pleasure, I can assure you."

"I'm quite able to defend my own honor, but thank you, that's very sweet. Your name is Stephen, is that so?" asks the strikingly pale newcomer.

"Yeah. The asshole without skin is apparently named Skulduggery. By chance. Go figure."

"My name is China. It's nice to meet you, Stephen."

"Same to you," Stephen says, returning China's polite nod.

"What, it's not nice to meet me?" Skulduggery asks.

"No," China and Stephen answer as one, with a grinning backwards glance at each other a moment after.

"Girls," Skulduggery says in an aggrieved undertone. Stephen scowls and China sighs delicately,

"For the record, Skulduggery, I'm not a girl," China says, mezzo-soprano voice even.

"You're in this holding room with the two of us, about to be carted off to a reform school," Skulduggery says, voice bored and distant. "You have to be within a year of sixteen. Sorry if I don't think that qualifies you as a woman."

"I'm not a girl," China repeats, "and I'm not a woman."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Skulduggery says. "Don't tell me you're one of those traps."

"I'm going to ignore that just this once," China says evenly. "But the next time you say something like that, I am going to tear you apart and hide the pieces."

"Oh, so you are one of those, then," Skulduggery says mockingly. "What should I call you, then? He? She? It?"

China moves forward fluidly. Skulduggery tries to scuffle away, but fails. China draws back abruptly a moment after.

"You can have your hand back when we're done with this conversation," China says calmly. "If, and only if, I feel like returning it. I am not a man, or a woman, or a girl, or a boy, or any one of a number of slurs I'm sure you could pull out of thin air if you were feeling, at any point, suicidal. You do not get to call me he, or she, or it. You may use singular they to refer to me, or my name. You will not disrespect me any further, nor make transphobic remarks in my presence."

"Fine," Skulduggery says. "Can I have my hand back now?"

"Apologize first," China says.

"I apologize," Skulduggery says sulkily. "Not sure what for, but-" He pauses at the look on China's face. "I apologize," he repeats after a moment, and China nods.

"That's a start," China says, and returns Skulduggery's hand.