Chapter Text
When Nancy Drew was nineteen years old, she was cursed.
It all started with a case. A woman had shown up to The Claw looking for Nancy and proceeded to tell her about an older woman who lived in the woods and that had kidnapped her brother. As it turns out, the woman living in the woods was a witch.
The brother who was taken, was meant to have his blood used for a ritual to try and bring someone back from the dead. Blood for blood. Nancy and her friends had arrived just in time to save his life and stop the ritual. But that had earned Nancy a not so pleasing response from the woman in the woods.
“You take what I love from me. So I will take from you too.” She had said, her finger pointing at Nancy. Her eyes were full of rage. “If you kiss your soulmate, they will die.”
Nancy had been taken aback by the woman's words, but hadn't believed that the curse was real. It couldn't be. Plus, soulmates are definitely not real. She had nothing to worry about.
Still, the words played on the back of her mind, like an annoying song she couldn't quite get rid of.
______
“Wait.” Nick says, his expression confused. “A witch cursed you?”
It's past midnight and they are all gathered at The Claw, sitting around on one of the booth tables.
“She did.” Bess answers for her. “And now Nancy can never kiss her soulmate.”
Nancy rolls her eyes. “I'm not too worried about that.”
“You don't believe in soulmates?” Bess asks her, eyes wide.
“Let's change the subject, okay?”
“Wait, before we do that-” Ace says, coming into the dining area from the kitchen with a plate of french fries on his hands. An apron hangs on his waist and his hair is a little messy as usual. “How do you know someone is your soulmate?”
Nancy's eyes linger maybe a little too long on him.
“You don't.” She tells him. “Because there's no such thing.”
“Right. But let's say there is.” He continues, sitting down on the seat across the table from her. He keeps his eyes set on hers. It almost makes her feel things she's not sure she should be feeling. “How would you know?”
“You just feel it.” George says, absentmindedly. Her thoughts seem to be thousands of miles away, the one thing grounding her is Nick's hands on hers. He gives her a soft squeeze.
George isn't really one for love declarations - most of all, public ones. This display coming from her makes something inside of Nancy fill up with a feeling that seems an overwhelmingly lot like longing. She looks away from them. Her heart feels like it weighs like rocks inside her chest.
“Yeah.” Nick agrees. “You can just feel it. It's like pieces falling into place.”
“Right.” Nancy says, getting up from her seat. “Let's never talk about this again. Goodnight, guys.”
Bess sighs in desperation. “Just don't kiss anyone until we know more about this!”
Nancy smiles. “Not planning on it.”
She walks alone to her car and drives home. There, in the silence of her bedroom, she thinks about her friend's words.
How do you know someone is your soulmate?
You just feel it.
Like pieces falling into place.
______
That night, she dreams of blonde curls and blue eyes and hands that touch all over her body.
She dreams of kissing someone and them falling to their death before she can even think about it.
She dreams of heartache so painful and strong that she wakes up screaming in the middle of the night
______
The weeks after her so-called curse were followed by Bess bringing her numerous researches about soulmates and how to connect to them or how to find them. Even though Nancy was annoyed at this soulmate conversation, she was fond of Bess’ attempts to help her.
One specific day, though, Bess strides into The Claw’s kitchen with a huge smile on her lips and a small card in her hands. “I got it!” She says happily.
“Got what?” Nancy asks.
“The perfect way for us to find out more about this soulmate curse thing!”
“Oh.”
“Come on, Nancy! Cheer up a bit, it might save you from a lifetime of not kissing anyone ever.”
“I'm-” she sighs. “I said I don't believe the curse is real, Bess.”
“But what if it is? Are you really willing to risk someone's life?”
“I-” she starts, but can't really think of anything to say to that. “I will give it a try. What is it?”
Her smile is wide as she says excitedly "A psychic!"
Nancy frowns. "A psychic?"
"Yes! It's perfect!"
"Okay..."
And next thing Nancy knows, she's got an appointment for the next afternoon at Madam Sargent. Bess insists George come with them and so off they go to the psychic. The appointment is as normal as Nancy assumed it would be, she didn't know what exactly Bess thought they would find here, but as far as they've gotten, it doesn't seem much help.
Except, right when she’s about to call it quits on the appointment and get up to leave, the psychic grips Nancy's hand a little harder than she feels comfortable letting her and when she tries to pull back, the woman puts her both hands on top of Nancy's.
"Let go of me.”
“You are going to kill someone.” She says.
Nancy feels a shiver run down her spine at the woman's words. "I- what?”
“Before the end of this year.” Madam Sargent nods and closes her eyes. “The spirits do not lie and they're telling me that you'll kill someone before the year ends.”
“What so they can see the future now, too?” She tries to sound nonchalant about it, but her grip on Bess’ hands tightens.
“The spirit world does not follow a linear line. They know everything that was and everything that will be.”
“Can't they have mistaken her for someone else?” Bess asks, ever the hopeful.
“No.” The woman's voice is strong and sure. “You should leave.” She tells them.
She plays it off when her friends ask her if everything is okay after the session, because she's Nancy Drew and this shouldn't bother her.
But when she gets home that night, her head is filled with thoughts of soulmates and curses and forbidden kisses. Her head aches from all of it and she falls asleep sometime in the middle of the night from exhaustion of thinking about it.
She again dreams of blonde curls and blue eyes that belong to someone who's face she can't see but is very familiar with somehow.
______
It’s early afternoon and The Claw is empty and Nancy and Ace are on a smoke break - Nancy just keeping him company while he smokes his usual blunt.
“So, soulmate curse thing. How’s that going?”
“Still don’t think it’s real.”
“Soulmates are real, Nance, come on.”
She laughs. “How can you be sure? And how can I be sure I even have one? Do I even deserve a soulmate?”
“I don’t think that's how it works.” he lets out a puff of smoke before continuing. “But, if it is. You're the hero of Horseshoe Bay, Nancy! You're the person who fights for everyone’s safety. You care about other people in such an intense and beautiful way and you are always trying to help. You are an amazing person, Nance, and you do deserve a soulmate.”
“Thank you.” She says, her eyes a little teary for no apparent reason. He always knows how to hit her on the weak spots - in a good way.
“Even though I'll just end up killing them.” She says, lightening up the mood so she doesn’t have to think too much about the wave of feelings she’s having for him right now that are wanting to drown her.
“Oh wow.” He says, his posture changing into some kind of defeat. “I actually forgot all about that.”
Nancy laughs. It's a loud and open laugh that she hasn't really let out in a long time. Leave it to Ace to be the one to make her laugh like that about something that should be very serious.
______
The following week, Nancy arrives at The Claw, late as usual, and is greeted by a yell coming from behind the bar.
“Nice one Drew, you managed to beat your own record!”
Nancy only smiles at George and walks into the kitchen to find Bess and Ace talking worriedly about something.
“Is everything okay?” She asks them, taking an apron and tying it around her waist.
Bess looks at her with huge eyes. Something isn't right.
“It's nothing.” Ace tells her.
“Ace kicked a blood bucket last night.” Bess informs Nancy and there’s something off about the way she says it.
“Shit. But you don't actually believe that's real, right?” Nancy asks, she knows this has been a ritual in town since forever. Putting a bucket of salt water on the front door at night, and kicking it over at midnight, if there’s still water in it, the person lives. If there’s blood in it, the person is marked for death in the coming year.
It's silly, if anyone were to ask Nancy, but it’s a ritual known to the whole town and followed suit every year.
“Of course we do!” Bess says, her tone is sharp and Nancy is taken back a little. She and Ace trade a confused look.
“Okay, then. Sorry.”
“Nancy, I need to speak to you in the back room, please.” Bess says. Nancy trades yet another look with Ace but follows her friend down the stairs and into the supply room.
“What’s up, Bess?”
“Nancy, you need to tell me you’re seeing this.” Bess says, her hands on Nancy’s shoulders as she looks at her worriedly.
“Seeing what?”
“The clues, Nancy!”
“Bess, you’re being really cryptic right now and I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
“Nancy!” she says and walks away from her with one hand above her head like she’s checking for a fever. Nancy can see that Bess is very uncomfortable with whatever she has to tell her.
“Bess, you’re worrying me. Just tell me what’s going on.”
“Oh god” Bess hides her face behind her hands and sighs. “Nancy, you're, like, super smart and you solve all these mysteries and you were already doing that when you were like fourteen and you can't for the life of you see what's right in front of you!”
“I still have no idea what you're talking about, Bess.”
“I know you don't. That's the problem!” She says and looks at Nancy with sad eyes.
“Then explain it to me!”
“You're going to kill Ace!”
A pin could have dropped in the parking lot of The Claw and they would have heard it in the silence that followed that statement. Gears start turning inside Nancy’s head and it’s almost as if she only needed that extra piece of information to make sense of something she knew was bothering her but couldn’t place a finger on what it was.
“What?” Nancy manages to say.
“Think about it, Nancy.” Bess tells her as she sits Nancy down on the bench in front of their lockers and holds both her hands tightly. “You have a curse that says you'll kill your soulmate. And then that psychic woman says you'll kill someone within the year and then, cherry on top of the cake here, really-” she takes a deep breath. “Ace kicks the bucket and there's blood in it.”
Nancy freezes again. “But-” she starts, not knowing exactly what to say. “Ace isn't- I'm not-.”
Bess only looks at her. “Apparently he is. And apparently, you are .”
“Bess, you're being crazy.” she says. But it all makes sense, it falls into place like pieces of a puzzle like Nick said it would. It makes sense and that is the one time Nancy has never wanted to solve a mystery.
“I have to go. “ She says and leaves The Claw through the back door without looking back and only hears Bess shout “I'll cover your shift for you!”
______
The next day, Nancy arrived at The Claw late as usual and took an extra two minutes trying to get her heart into a steady rhythm before going in. She had spent the last night in the Historical Society trying to find anything on soulmates and witch curses. It had only let her know that breaking soulmate-love curses was practically impossible. She sighed and bumped her head on the wheel of her car, cursing.
She didn’t know how it would feel to see Ace knowing what she knows now. Even though she is still not a hundred percent sure, how can he be her soulmate? How come she is going to kill him?
She walks out of her car and into the restaurant through the back door, thinking maybe she can avoid seeing Ace for a little while longer when she bumps into him. Because of course she did.
And she takes one look at him and she just knows.
Of course he's her soulmate and of course she’s in love with him. She wonders why the hell it took her so long to figure that out. She thinks back to him dating Amanda last month and how her complete jealousy of them had nothing to do with not wanting to lose her best friend. It has absolutely everything to do with her being very much in love with him.
Her heart pretty much stops with the weight of her feelings for him flooding her entire body. She grips the chair next to her when her legs start to feel weak and Ace makes his way over to her, a concerned look on his face.
“You okay, Nance?” He gently takes herand from the chair, steadying her. Her heart now feels like it's dancing around inside her chest and is going to come out at any second.
“Yeah. I-” she pauses, not knowing what to say to him right now. "I'm fine, just got a little dizzy.”
“Did you eat at all today?”
Nancy looks at him, her eyes soften and her heart starts to beat at a normal pace. This is easy, actually. Being in love with him.
“Not really.”
“Nance, you know you have to eat something.”
“You worry too much.” She sits down, feeling her body slowly come out of the anxious state she was in.
“I made a promise to Mr. D.” He says to her. “Gotta keep my word.”
“You-” she pauses, looking for her words. “You promised my dad you'd make me eat?”
He shrugs. “Yeah. He knows how you get when you're working on a case.”
Nancy laughs softly, she feels herself relaxing.
Now all she has to do is make sure she never acts on her feelings for him.
Easy.
______
“Does it have to be a french kiss?” George asks one night, when they’re having yet another cram session trying to find some kind of answer at the Historical Society.
“Not helping, George.”
“Just curious.”
“Do you only have one soulmate?” Nick says next, his eyes scanning a text and Nancy thinks he’s found something when he says again: “Because maybe there’s a loophole in there somewhere.”
______
“It's like playing russian roulette or something.” Ace mentions one night at The Claw. He still doesn’t know - Nancy made sure Bess didn’t tell anyone about the part where he is her soulmate yet.
“What?” Bess says.
“Because she might never know who her soulmate is, so whoever she kisses could be it but also could not be it. So it’s like russian roulette.”
Nancy would agree if she already wasn’t so sure of who her soulmate is. It kills her not telling him yet, but she also knows that would make it all weird between them and she’s not ready to lose him as a friend yet. It also makes her wonder if the soulmate bond is necessarily a romantic one. Could it be that he is her platonic soulmate and so nothing ever comes of this?
She doesn’t know why that thought makes her heart sink deep inside her chest.
Ace looks at her then, probably wondering what she’s thinking. Probably guessing it too. Or he would be, if she wasn’t keeping a major piece of information from him. She gives him a small smile and turns her attention back to her reading.
She still feels his eyes on her.
______
It's way past midnight and Nancy is at a party.
Drunk .
And of course this wasn't her idea. Bess can be very convincing when she wants to - and this has been a rough year so maybe Nancy wasn't all that hard to convince. This is the first party they've been to together as a group without a hidden agenda. No investigation of any kind. Just good old fun between friends.
Underaged drinking kind of fun, but fun nonetheless.
The last party like this that Nancy had been to was the night her mother died. And she never really felt like going to parties after that - an anxious feeling always followed her around, like something bad was about to happen because she was having fun. Not to mention how guilty she had felt after getting home and finding out her mom was gone. But she was trying to take all her walls down and let people in and this is the kind of thing people do with their friends and so, here she is.
Drunk.
At a party.
George and Nick are sitting on a couch talking excitedly about something. Nancy wonders if they've had more than just alcohol - she did see some pot brownies being passed around. Bess is pressed against a wall by a very beautiful brunette girl and Nancy is on her way to the second floor to try and find a bathroom. The walk up, as it turns out, it's very eventful. She passes people making out on the stairs, people throwing up and even someone sleeping with their back against the wall on the last step.
She tries to think of how it felt like to be that young, to not care where you slept (to being able to sleep at all and not be plagued by nightmares) or who you made out with, to letting go so much that nothing else really seems to matter other than the moment you're in and the people you're with. She only ever felt that way when she was seventeen and today - after all she's been through the last few years - it's like she hasn't had time for that at all. Not when the town counts on her to deal with its supernatural threats, even if they don't know it.
Nancy shakes her head to get all those thoughts out. She's supposed to be having fun! Not diving deep into some philosophical reasoning about her own life and what it means to be young. She gets to the hallway on the second floor and there's about four or five doors and Nancy does not want to open each of them out of fear of what she might encounter inside, but she's got her work cut out for her when she finds onde of them is marked by a white piece of paper with the words “ bathroom ” written on it with a red marker.
She tries the door and luckily enough, it's empty inside. She slips in and locks the door behind her. She doesn't bother turning on the lights, she only wanted a place where her hearing wouldn't be attacked by the loudest music she has ever heard. She takes a deep breath. Her head feels a little dizzy and she's almost sure the room is starting to spin around her.
“God, this was a terrible idea.” She tells herself. She hadn't had any alcohol for a while before tonight and so it all went to her head pretty fast.
Nancy goes to the sink and splashes some water on her face. She sits on the toilet and breaths in and out slowly until she feels she's in control of her own head again. She opens her eyes and gets up, walks to the door right next to her and exits the bathroom. It takes a few seconds for her eyes to adjust, but she knows she's not in the hallway where she came in through, there's no lights and no people and the music still sounds like it's coming from another room. She looks around and sees a bed in the middle of the room, she considers laying down for a few minutes.
Her feet are a little unsteady as she takes a step to try and reach the bed. “You can do this, Drew.” She tells herself.
“You're talking to yourself now?” Says a muffled voice from somewhere on the bed and it's enough to startle Nancy.
“What the fuck?” She says.
“Sorry, didn't mean to scare you, Nance.”
Nancy feels instant relief at recognizing Ace's voice and it's not until she's reached the bed that she can see him spread on it with his chest down, his head is turned her way and he's looking at her through the hair falling on his eyes.
“You okay, Ace?” She asks, completely ignoring the way her heart is doing backwards cartwheels inside her chest.
“Stellar.” He says. “You?”
“Haven't had this much to drink since High School, so- not so great.”
“You were wild in High School.” He states, matter-of-factly.
“What makes you think that?”
“We went to the same school, remember?”
This takes Nancy back a bit, even if she was sober, that was a strange thing to think about. Her life then and her life now seem like they are worlds apart. To try and make sense of Ace being a part of her life before - even if she didn't even know he existed - seems too much for her. Like somehow he is the one constant thing in all her life.
That thought weighs on her chest like a pile of rocks. She takes a deep breath and lays on the bed right next to him, on the small space he is not currently occupying. The curse be damned, apparently.
“Yeah.” She tells him.
She's looking up at the ceiling and they stay like this for a while. She doesn't know if Ace is still looking at her and nor does she want to.
This shouldn't even be happening, them being drunk together and surely not laying on the same bed. Nancy feels like her reasoning is really lacking tonight. At least she can blame alcohol and not her own lack of restraint.
She turns to her side and looks at Ace, his eyes are now closed, the moon shines bright outside and it pours into the room through a small opening on the curtain above their heads making Ace look almost ghost-like.
Nancy shivers at that thought. Bess’ words reverberate on her head like a mantra.
You're going to kill Ace.
She hates this.
Ace opens his eyes, like somehow he could feel her staring at him.
“What's on your mind, Nance?”
“Nothing much” she lies.
Ace’s eyes stay on her, analyzing her. She hates how well he knows her. He rises up from his position and mirrors hers, his right hand supporting his head.
“Still thinking about that curse?”
Her heart stops, or that's how it feels like, at least. “I told you I don't believe it's real. Even if Bess is making us do all this research.”
“Yes, but I don't believe you .”
She sighs. “I guess part of me wonders-” she pauses, not sure of what to say next. “If it could be real.”
“That makes sense, you've dealt with the supernatural enough to have doubts about this.”
“Yeah. The curse part I think it's the easiest to get.” She says. Her heart beats a million miles per hour. “It's the soulmate part.” She says, almost a whisper, unsure if this is the way she should be leading this conversation. But she's got alcohol on her mind and nothing really makes that much sense anymore.
“We've had this conversation before, you still don't think you have a soulmate?” His voice is soft, like it always is with her. And it tightens her chest.
“No.”
Ace’s movements seem almost in slow motion to her, as he takes a strand of her hair and puts it behind her ear, his thumb brushing her cheek just slightly - and even that is enough to make her shiver.
“I think you do.” He says. His eyes lock on hers and she has to remind herself to breathe.
In one two three.
Out one two three.
“I-” she starts but is then interrupted by someone stumbling into the room very loudly. It's a couple trying to find somewhere to surely do something they shouldn't do at a house party - but Nancy isn't one to judge anyone for their poor life choices.
“Holy shit, guys. I'm so sorry.” The guy says before backing out of the room again with whoever he was with.
“They seem to be having a lot of fun.” Ace says.
Nancy only laughs at that, her heart still beating a thousand beats a second as she tries to recover from whatever was happening between her and Ace before.
“I should get home.” She tells him, probably the safest bet for her right now is to go home. Alone . And sleep this drunk stupidity off.
“Yeah, I'm thinking of heading off too.” Ace says, but Nancy sees something in his face that tells him home is the last place he wants to go to right now.
They get up from the bed and Nancy realizes the room is no longer spinning and she can safely get downstairs without the risk of falling down or anything of that nature. When she's almost at the door, she trips on a part of the rug that became crumpled probably from when those two guys came in and she curses under her breath when she feels herself slipping.
But Ace catches her before she makes it to the floor.
And Nancy wishes he would have let her fall face first onto the floor;
Because now he's holding her with both his hands on her waist and she's way too close to him for this to actually result in anything good. She takes a deep breath but it's the worst thing she could've done because she can smell his perfume which yeah she never noticed before but now it's making her want to jump his bones - and add that to the list of things drinking makes her, horny.
“Sure you can make it home alone?” He asks. His lips are inches from her and it takes pretty much all the restraint she still has left inside not to look directly into his eyes.
“Yeah, just tripped on the rug, I'm okay.”
“Nancy.” He says. His voice sounds serious and she's on her last fucking thread here and she needs to step away from him. “Can you look at me?”
“No.” She tells him.
“Why not?”
“Because I don't want to.”
Because it’d be dangerous to.
“Nancy.” He says and something in the way he says that makes her whole body turn into a puddle and she can't help but dart her eyes over to his.
“Yeah?”
Again everything that happens feels like it's in slow motion. Ace takes one of his hands from her waist and gently traces one of his fingers over her cheek and she feels his touch burning through her.
She closes her eyes and leans into his touch.
"Ace. Don't."
“Why?”
Because you’re my soulmate and it would not end well?
That’s not something she should tell him.
She looks up at him again. “You know, don’t you?”
He gives her a small smile. Of course he does. How did she ever think she could keep this from him? Or that Bess could? She curses under her breath.
“How? When?”
“You started being distant all of the sudden and then George let something slip about a psychic appointment and that led me to Bess and she just told me about the ‘killing someone within the year’ part.” He sighs. “I’m guessing she wanted me to figure it out but promised you she wouldn't tell me so- yeah.”
Nancy laughs at how she really thought she could hide this from him when Bess was involved.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. Didn’t know how.”
“Didn’t know how to tell me I’m your soulmate? Or that you are going to kill me?”
“Both.”
He laughs and touches his forehead to hers. It’s intimate and it’s the closest they’ve been for a while. It makes her whole body shiver.
“Ace.”
"I know." He whispers. "I'm not going to kiss you. I just-"
His lips hover inches above hers and Nancy is sure that alcohol really is the devil's advocate and she would promise never to go near it again if she could formulate anything remotely close to a thought right now. Or, at least, any thoughts that don't involve Ace and his goddamn lips.
"This curse is really something else, isn't it?" He says and Nancy can sense the smell of mint on his breath.
"Yeah." She laughs a little. Her eyes have filled up with tears for whatever reason and she has to take a deep breath before trying to step away from him.
“I want to kiss you so bad it's actually making me think maybe death isn't such a terrible fate." He says.
Nancy laughs. "You're an idiot if you think that."
"At least it would be a hell of a way to go."
"Yeah, I guess it would."
They get out of the room soon after, and they each take their separate cars and drive their own houses and it hurts being apart and it hurts not being able to be together when just finding out you want to.
Nancy dreams of him again. She now knows it’s him. But she doesn’t wake up in pain the next morning, only feeling a little empty.