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After a case brought Nancy Drew to a town neighboring Bayport, it was only natural for her to drop in to the Hardy residence and say hello to her favorite brothers in the world; and, naturally, the trio spent the next few days finishing up the case altogether, eventually tracking down the notorious jewel thief who had been hitting a carefully selected array of towns all the way across the United States. Finally bringing such a criminal to justice was an immensely satisfying feeling no matter how many times it was experienced, and knowing that the guy was safely behind bars for years to come, the detectives decided it would be nice to spend a little mystery-free time together on the night before Nancy’s departure back to River Heights - that is, until they realized that this happened to be the same night Frank had previously signed up to give a lecture on criminal justice at the local community college.
“Well, at least the timing of this last case kinda worked out. Now I have some fresh experiences to share,” Frank says with a halfhearted grin, “Look after Joe tonight, will you, Nancy?”
They exchange a long, tender goodbye hug as Nancy chuckles a little, “No problem.”
Frank begins striding towards the entryway, teasing inflections lacing his deep voice as it gets gradually further away, “Yeah, well, you might want to wait and see what it’s actually like watching over him! Not as easy as it sounds.”
“Hey, I’m right here,” Joe jokes back, waving his hands a little from inside his hoodie’s pockets. Nancy gazes after the older Hardy brother as he leaves, “Bye.”
“See you, Nancy.”
The front door opens then closes, leaving the two remaining sleuths in silence.
Joe takes in a deep breath, glancing at the vintage CLUE board game that Aunt Trudy had gifted to the brothers for Christmas when they were 8 and 9 – an expected favorite of theirs. He casually ambles over to where the unopened box sits on one edge of the angled fireplace, gesturing towards it. “Well, there’s no reason we can’t still have a game night of our own, right?”
Nancy shrugs, “I don’t see why not!”
As Joe sets up the board on the living room floor, Nancy goes into the kitchen to fetch a glass. “Joe, do you want anything to drink?”
“Nah I’m good,” he responds, attempting to shuffle the deck of Room cards back and forth in his hands; split the deck at a random place, shove the two halves back together, hope for the best. Repeat. Frank was a much better shuffler, to be honest, but someone had never bothered to teach Joe how to do it properly. So. This is the method he is using.
Shut up.
A mild look of distaste suddenly clouds Joe’s face, though despite his furrowed brows there’s a bit of a smile playing at the edges of his lips, “Hey Nance, you’re not about to do that thing where you just drink plain milk, are you? ‘Cause –”
He twists his body around to see the strawberry blonde shuffling sheepishly towards him with both hands protectively cradling a glass full of solid white liquid.
“Oh my God.”
Nancy crosses her legs and sits opposite him, “It’s good for you.”
“It’s also gross.”
“No, it’s not!”
“Milk is good for cereal and absolutely nothing else!”
Nancy shakes her head at his antics – in this case, a dramatic finger lifted into the air as if he were making some grand point – and lets out a short giggle, “Ookay, Joe. Are we ready to get started?”
“Absolutely,” he points to the two messy starter decks he’d already dealt out, “Pick your poison – err, I mean… well, yeah. That’s pretty on the nose for a game of CLUE, don’t you think?”
Nancy nods, cheekily yet subtly repeating Joe’s line from just a few moments before, “Absolutely.”
Hours pass as the two race each other to crack each miniature case, and the stakes keep getting higher as they find small ways to make the mysteries harder – taking random unseen cards 100% out of play, limiting their amount of turns before someone has to make an accusation, and in one heated round they even ditched their notepads entirely, opting instead to take on the challenge of storing everything in memory.
Nancy crushed him in that round, because Joe’s long term memory is all right, but short term…? Forget about it.
Joe keeps a win/lose tally on his phone, of course, and by the time 10:30PM rolls around Nancy has him beat by 3 wins. He isn’t sure if it’s because of the dim lighting from the many candles Mrs. Hardy likes to keep around the house or the fact that he’s still on this semi-childish competitive high, but when he looks up at Nancy while she’s gathering up the pieces from their latest game, he’s reminded of something.
“Hey Nance, do you remember doing this as kids?”
She pauses, absentmindedly setting down the weapon pieces in their correct spots on the board. “I do. ‘Course, we didn’t get to do it very much.”
There was a chuckle at the end of her sentence, after which Joe emits one of his own. “Yeah. Man, things were so different back then.”
“How so?”
Joe starts to open his mouth, but realizes he isn’t sure how to explain what he meant. Game nights back then for Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys really were few and far between, but every once in a while - whenever Carson was away on business and Hannah had family matters to attend to - the stars would align, and Nancy would be allowed to stay with the Hardy family for a few days. On the night of Nancy’s arrival Laura always made sure to bake up a fresh batch of her famous chocolate chip cookies, which was a favorite of the 3 young teenagers. Unsurprisingly, the heaping pile of cookies would be devoured in about 5 minutes flat… Joe really wishes he hadn’t thought of that. Now his mouth is watering.
He also realizes that Nancy is still waiting for him to answer her question.
He shrugs. “I don’t know, I mean, we were kids. Of course it was different.”
“You’re not different, though,” a playful, sincere smile works its way onto her face as she looks up at him in the candlelight, “I think you’ve changed the least out of all of us.”
She means this to be a lighthearted comment, Joe knows, but internally it makes him feel a little funny. He thinks he’s changed a lot since then. True, he’s still impulsive and daring and makes himself laugh at all of the stupid jokes that formulate in his brain… but not everything is how it was back in those days.
Long before the world caught on to the inherent connection that exists between Frank & Nancy, Joe was the one who had first taken an interest in the girl detective; well, as much interest as an awkward, inexperienced 13-year-old could. He had just started noticing girls, and Nancy was very pretty, but… she was so, so unlike all the other pretty girls at Bayport Middle & High School.
But obviously he doesn’t feel that way anymore. That’s probably the biggest difference between now & then, because Joe had easily understood that if Nancy were ever to break up with her longtime beau Ned Nickerson (which probably wasn’t going to happen), the next person in line for her romantic affections was going to be Frank Hardy (who is definitely not Joe). And he was totally okay with that. In fact, it was kinda fun to watch Nancy & his brother’s friendship grow over the years, especially when he got to tease Frank about all the lingering glances and “unspoken words” he never had the chance to say to Nancy. Poking at his brother is something Joe enjoys no matter the context.
Back in reality, Nancy has finally finished dealing out the cards for another game and is looking expectantly at her friend. “Your turn to choose!”
Joe thinks he remembers her saying the exact same thing when they were about 15, sitting in the exact same spot on the floor, playing the exact same board game. Her reddish-blonde hair had been pulled into a side braid as she usually wore it at the time, as opposed to the natural perfect curl her hair comes to at her shoulder blades now, but her ice blue eyes were as sharp and sparkling as ever. It’s been a long time since Joe has looked at Nancy. Like, looked at her in the way he did when they first met. In fact, up until this moment he thought that her freckles had just disappeared as she got older, but underneath the dancing shadows on her face he can still see a light dusting of them going across her nose; subtle, but cute, and only noticeable if you’re really looking.
...Oh.
Joe swallows. At last he picks up the leftmost deck of starter cards and fans it out in his hand, examining the assortment in front of him; Peacock, revolver, wrench, conservatory, billiard room. His heart pounds a little heavier than usual as he marks them each off his list. Anxiety isn’t something Joe usually struggles with, but he thinks this is what it feels like.
It’s okay, though, Joe reasons with himself, This is just a weird flash of… whatever. It’ll pass and all will go back to normal.
“Alright. You can go first this time.” when Nancy looks up from her notepad, she must take notice of the thoughtful look on Joe’s face. She frowns a bit, her brows furrowing in that concerned, inquisitive way they do. “Hey, are you okay?”
Joe clears his throat. Back to normal.
“Yeah, sorry! Was thinking about… something totally unrelated. I’m good. Lets go.”
With that he flashes her a trademark Joe Hardy smile, picks up the dice, and does not give it another thought.