Chapter Text
In his defense, Ace had a very good reason for faking his back being thrown out. Not good enough to fool Nancy Drew herself, of course, but good enough to convince Bess.
"What did you do to yourself?" She shouted the moment she entered his bedroom. "You go and move in with Nancy and suddenly you throw your back out the next day?" There's a pause, with a look that worries Ace as a triumphant smirk falls on her face. "You two did it, didn't you?!"
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Ace asks, barely able to school his face into a calculated calm. "We went to bed in separate beds last night. I don't even know what time she went to bed." That's a lie, it was about 2:48 am when Nancy finally fell asleep. He could hear it when she stopped turning and twisting in her bed. The walls are thin in these apartments, and Ace is fully aware of that since he could hear George and Nick more times than he'd like to think about.
"Then why the bloody hell are you still in bed? I checked and you haven't taken any painkillers." How the fuck does she know that? When Ace furrows his brow, she sighs dramatically (well, does Bess do anything without it being slightly dramatic? Jury's still out on that one) and says, "I got you a new bottle and according to Nancy, that's the only one you have. It hasn't been opened." When Ace still looks dumbfounded, Bess asks, "How stupid do you think I am? I've been doing detective things for months now, Ace."
"Why are you rooting through my medicine cabinet?" That's a sentence that makes him feel like an adult. He has a medicine cabinet and an apartment and a job. Ace Hardy, slacker and stoner, has become an adult.
"Why are you avoiding the question?" Bess knows him too well.
"I'm not!" He is. "It's just strange you looked through my medicine cabinet." It's really not; strange would be a sea monster doing it or something. "I don't feel anything for Nancy other than platonic friendship." You know, other than the whole sex dream thing.
"You're a horrible liar. So, tell me why you're faking your back injury and I actually take a couple of Motrin for George out of your medicine bottle so Nancy doesn't get suspicious," Bess offers and Ace realizes he has been backed into a corner. Shit. That wasn't supposed to happen.
"There may have been a dream involved," he starts and Bess goes ghostly pale. "Nothing with FHK-"
"Oh thank god," she breathes.
"But still weird. It, um, involved Nancy." God, this is awkward. Talking with his platanchor about the girl who's basically her sister is uncomfortable, to say the least. "And it was, um, not platonic." Ace's face is burning, he can physically feel it. "So now, I'm-"
"Having a crisis of the heart?" Bess asks, as though this is a plot on one of those terrible British soaps she's always watching. "Ace! You're in love!"
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here," he cautions. Love? Nope, he's just got some good old fashioned lust right now that causes him to be sexually attracted to Nancy, that's all. Nothing more, nothing less. Nancy's his best friend. Who he wants to fuck.
But you can't exactly address that with someone. How do you go up to someone and say, "I had a dream we had sex," especially then they're your roommate, especially when they're your best friend and coworker? You don't, is the simple answer.
Bess sighs, "Fine. I'll take a few Motrin out of the container for you. Figure out what to do about your Nancy situation."
------
Nancy rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she waited for the coffee pot to finish brewing. To say that she had an uncomfortable first night would be an understatement. It started off nicely, but she couldn’t get the weird encounter in the kitchen with Ace out of her mind. He was acting strangely and she wasn’t sure what she’d done wrong. He came in with sleep tousled hair looking the sexiest she had ever seen him and abruptly left the room like his feet couldn’t carry him fast enough.
(Was he having a nightmare?)
She wasn’t sure what was going on with him, but he had a habit of internalizing his problems even more than she did. It’s one of the things that drew her to him. They were like two halves of the same coin. Nancy tried to push past it, but found that sleep just wasn’t coming to her. By the time she had finally dozed off it was almost time to get ready to go to the station. She had a supernatural killer track, but for some reason her heart wasn’t in it.
She was leaning over the counter with her crimson hair covering her face as she gripped the coffee mug. He stood there just watching her and wondered when she had snuck up on him. Were these feelings always there under the surface or was it just a symptom of lust that had overtaken him. He had tossed and turned all night trying to shake off the sight of her in those shorts; her inviting bottom and shapely legs haunting his dreams. Ace was sure that by the morning those feelings would have dissipated, but they were replaced with a softness. She looked up and smiled at him and it felt like every wrong in the world could be righted with one look.
He walked slowly over to her and said, “pass me a cup.”
Ace poured himself a cup of coffee and tried not to think of the emotions that were swimming through his mind. So, he pushed it down and focused on finding a job and catching the Frozen Heart Killer. “Got any leads?”
“Not yet. But, I’m going to the station and hopefully we’ll get something out of Trott,”Nancy replied. As awkward as the previous evening had been it felt like everything was as it should be again.
Ace nods his head and says, “Just keep me updated.”
“Good luck with the job thing,”Nancy responds. He smiles softly before turning to go down the hall. Before she had a moment to gather her thoughts, she could hear the sound of the shower.
*******
Nancy idled her way through old cases that she hoped would give her a clue. But, found herself turning to her two hundred year old aunt for the help that she needed. Temperance was someone that she had trouble trusting, but she needed the assistance that only she could provide. By the time she figured out some important details, she found an exhausted Ace sitting on their couch at home. Nick and George were also there waiting for her when she got there.
George nodded towards Ace and whispered “What’s his deal”
Nancy simply shrugged. The group talked about the soul splitter and the latest clues on who may have released the original Frozen Hearts killer. While the others were fully engaged in the discussion Ace’s mind was on something else.
“For God Sakes, what’s wrong with you?”
“Didn’t sleep much.” Ace mumbled halfheartedly.
George raised her eyebrow and said, “hey, I don’t wanna know.”
Nancy gave her dirty look while Ace seemed bored and out of it. “Well, I mean you can’t blame me with your new living situation and the fact that both of you are acting weird,”George says. She points her finger at Nancy and says “plus you haven’t exactly been subtle about the fact that you want to bone him.”
Nancy’s eyes widened and she quickly shoved George into the other room. “What? I’m just saying what we’ve all been noticing.”
She reached over and covered her friend's hands with her own. This was getting more than a little embarrassing and it's not like she could go home and hide from him since they now lived together. “Stop it. Just drop the subject now.”
“Well, if it helps I’m pretty sure he wants to bone you too,”George mumbled.
Nancy's face flushed so red, she could very well be mistaken for a tomato. "Don't look so scandalized, Drew. You've had your fair share of partners in the back room, this one's just Ace. Ace, who there's a mutual desire to bone with when it comes to you."
"There is no mutual desire to bone with Ace!" Nancy exclaims. There isn't, for the record. She just likes him in a platonic way. "He doesn't want to and neither do I."
"This place has thin walls, Nancy," George says with a very large smirk. Oh fuck. She's right.
--
Well then. The walls have revealed one thing: Nancy doesn't want to reenact any of that pesky dream Ace had. At Least that’s what Ace told himself. He wasn’t sure if George ever realized how much her voice carried, but he could hear the majority of their conversation and it was decidedly clear that whatever he was feeling--scratch that his body was feeling--was not mutual.
Plus he didn’t really want to jeopardize one of the most important friendships in his life and all for what a roll in the hay with a pretty girl.
“Ace, are you paying attention to me? Or are you to focussed on whatever,” Nick pointed to the other room “you and Nancy have going on.”
“We have nothing going on?”Ace insisted but his friend just gave him a look that indicated he wasn’t buying a word he was saying.
“Really. It was just a dream.”
“I know we heard you,”Nick replied and Ace immediately turned crimson. The whole situation was getting decidely weird and he was beginning to think this whole arrangement was a bad idea.
(But, it’s late now)
Eventually, the girls came out of the room and Nancy kept looking at her feet or the wall, anywhere but at him. They all decided to separate into small groups to hunt down the last known whereabouts of the Frozen hearts killer. For Nancy it meant tracking down her two hundred year old aunt. Nick and George decided to split up and trace Trott’s whereabout for the past few weeks to see if there was another suspect since another murder had taken place since he was in custody. There was another killer out there and it could be anyone.
“I’m gonna go to Icarus Hall and see if I can pump information out of my dear old aunt,”Nancy said.
“Nick and I are going to retrace Trott’s step to see if tehre are clues to the second killer,”George insisted.
Bess scurried after Nick and George and said, “I’m gonna go with them.”
Ace shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at Nancy awkwardly. “I guess I’m going to Icarus Hall,”he mumbled.
Nancy started heading towards her car. “I’m not riding in that thing.”Ace insisted. “You could always take your own car.
“Or we could go in Florence,”Ace insisted. He hated the weirdness that was surrounding them. Nancy looked at him and found her eyes drawn to his lips and those pretty blue eyes of his and was having trouble focussing on anything.
“Fine, but only if you let me drive.”Nancy insisted. He looked at her aghast. “You’re kidding.”
She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “You let me drive you that one time.”
“I had no choice and my arm was in a sling,”he mumbled. But one look at her and he was reaching into his pocket and extracting his eyes. He placed it in her hand. His fingers grazed the palm of her hand and felt like he had been struck with a bolt of lighting. Ace watched her get behind the wheel. She was bouncing like a small child and it made him smile. He loved seeing her happy like this.
“You doing okay?”
“What do you mean?”she asked. Nancy started the car and started driving so fast that Ace found himself mumbling apologies to Florence.
“Can you slow down, Nancy. I'd really like to avoid being in another car accident. I think one head on collision this year is enough,” he said.
“How does this ancient car run so smoothly,”she replied before taking a sharp turn down the next street. Ace was holding on to the handle for dear life. “I’m so sorry Florence. This is never happening again.”
Nancy finally turns into a deserted lane and parks the car in front of a large imposing stone house which resembles a castle. She reaches over and touches Ace’s leg “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
He looks down at his thigh where hand is still resting and the heat emanating from her touch is making his throat dry up. Nancy pulls her hand away and all thought seems to escape her, but Neither of them say a word. They are frozen in place.
Nancy lifts her hand from his leg and runs her fingers through her hair. She had gotten caught up in the moment and now she was left speechless. An explanation was on the tip of her tongue but nothing was coming out.
(Just say something)
Ace was frozen in place. What had just happened? He couldn’t make sense of it and Nancy’s silence on the matter was not helping. But, he did what he always did and tucked it away into the recesses of his mind. He was not the type to broach a topic because conflict never seemed to work in his favor so it was probably best that he say nothing.
They got out of the car and approached the door of the great hall
“Ace, um about earlier..”
“It’s okay, I think we both got caught up in a moment. It’s no big deal," he said softly.