Chapter Text
part i: blind
Cause friends don't do the things we do
Everybody knows you love me too
Tryna be careful with the words I use
I say it cause I'm dying to I'm so much more than just a friend to you
*
The junk yard is not where Nancy expected to be today, but such is life. You wake up thinking you can ask your birth father to take you to his family’s mysterious cabin in the woods and find yourself surrounded by scrap metal instead.
Even worse, you find yourself at the behest of Gil Bobbsey.
“Not the side-view mirror, Drew, the rearview mirror.”
Nancy snaps the rearview mirror from the smashed windshield of a totaled car and throws it at Gil. He catches it with ease.
“What are we even doing here?” Nancy demands to know. “I came to ask you for a favor. Not the other way around.”
“Are you familiar with breaking and entering?” Gil asks her, examining knobs from a broken down vintage. “Burglary? Fun?”
“Intimately.”
Gil pitches a dirty hammer across the yard. Something in the distance shatters. “That’s what we’re doing.”
So Nancy finds herself breaking the law again. What else is new?
In retaliation for dragging her into crime, she aims a metal nut at Gil’s arm. It hits.
He turns to her with a devilish smile. “What?” he asks. “Not gonna ask me why we’re stealing car parts?”
“Don’t care,” Nancy says. “I just want to know if you’re going to help me or not.”
“No dice, chickadee. I’m not taking ya there.”
He ignores Nancy’s huff and stuffs something shiny into his backpack.
What is with the Hudson family’s cabin and people denying Nancy entry? First Ryan, now Gil? It shouldn’t be this hard to get inside.
“Why ?” Nancy whines. She kicks at an old brown can.
“Let’s see.” Gil taps his chin with a rusty nail, playing at contemplation. “Maybe because the last time I went there, a forest wraith almost killed us and park rangers hit my sister with a car ? Tell me if I’m wrong.”
In Nancy’s opinion, Gil is far more put out than he has any right to be. Did he not cash in on a great steal that night? Did neither he or his criminal sister die?
“Ach,” Nancy waves her hand dismissively at him. “Freak accident.” Reconsidering, she pauses, blinking up at the sky. “Accidents ,” she corrects.
Gil snorts. “Sorry, Drew.”
This feels like Nancy’s only option: recruiting someone with intimate knowledge of the Hudson Cabin to sneak her onto the grounds and help her maneuver inside. Gil, with his childhood memories and sticky fingers, may even know where to find what Nancy is looking for. Perhaps he’s seen it before. Perhaps he’s even taken it.
Nancy loathes to admit it, but she needs his help.
Gesturing to the scrap around her, she says “I’ll help you rob this place,” in a last ditch effort to sway him.
Gil’s smize is all the answer Nancy needs. “You already are.”
It takes all the patience Nancy possesses not to kick at the flat tire between them. “Well. Not anymore!” she declares.
Fleeing the junkyard, Nancy climbs the chainlink fence, preparing to hop back to the right side of the law. At the top, she feels something hit her leg, hard. She looks down from her perch just in time to see the metal nut falling to the dirt. Nancy lifts her head to see Gil grinning up at her mischievously.
He’s charming, she’ll give him that.
Nancy can be too.
Before hitting the ground, she flips him the bird and he laughs.
Nancy is not done with Gil Bobbsey yet.
What she needs is a ring - specifically, one called The Blood Ring. It is a ring mentioned in a poem, written by a Hudson ancestor, left in the care of The Historical Society, where Nancy pilfered it on a “friendly” visit to Hannah. The Blood Ring is rumored to attract and ensnare evil spirits, which is exactly what Nancy and her friends spend their free time trying to do. Obviously, it would make sense for them to have it. The ring would be an essential weapon in their arsenal.
The problem, of course, is finding it.
The poem hints to The Blood Ring being hidden within a bloodwood tree, because of course it does. Some quality time with Lily the Florist taught Nancy that bloodwood trees are, in fact, a very rare teak not typically found in Horseshoe Bay. When probed about where exactly Nancy could find this specific teak, Lily laughed and told her South Africa. Upon further thought, however, she remembered helping the Hudson family tend to a tree of this sort on their property deep in Gorham Woods just last year.
A Hudson ring hidden in a Hudson tree on Hudson grounds? Nancy supposed that checked out.
So she asked Ryan to take her to it.
Adamantly, he refused.
“Don’t go anywhere near my family,” he warned her. “They’re dangerous, and they can’t know about you.”
“I called your mom a hussy and I put your dad in jail,” Nancy reminded him. “I think they know who I am.”
But Ryan was insistent she stay away.
Which is why Nancy turned to someone who knew the grounds just as well as he did, who was a lot more liberal in thumbing their nose at the law, and who did not give a single damn about Nancy’s safety.
And Gil refused to help her too.
So now she finds herself floundering, desperate to get to that tree and that ring, searching for her last resort.
“Have you seen Ace?”
Bess peeps through the serving window separating The Claw’s kitchen from its dining room, observing Nancy cautiously. “He...should be here soon.”
Nancy can tell Bess is withholding information. It’s not a common occurrence, but it has been happening more and more lately, and always in regards to their resident computer hacking stoner. Nancy is not ungrateful for Bess’ discrepancy. She would much rather pretend Ace is not doing whatever he is doing with whoever he is doing it with.
Today, though, Nancy can’t pretend. Today, she is irked.
She asked Ace to meet her at The Claw in twenty minutes, and that was forty minutes ago. As Nancy is always ten minutes behind schedule and he is always ten minutes ahead, she expected him to be here by now.
Clearly, she expected too much.
“I need him,” Nancy snaps.
She ignores the owl eyes Bess shoots at her.
“What for?” she asks. “Perhaps I can help.”
Oh, how Nancy wishes she could.
“You can’t,” she sighs. “It’s- it’s Bobbsey related.”
Visibly, Bess falters. “Oh?” When Nancy does not elaborate, Bess raises her hands and shakes them at her. “You can’t just say that and not tell me what is happening, Nancy!”
Though Nancy is saved from doing just that when through the door comes Ace.
“Hey,” he greets them, smile on his face. “Sorry I’m late.”
Nancy half-expects him to explain himself. He doesn’t.
“It’s about time,” she grumbles, and grabs onto his forearm, marching him towards a booth.
It settles something inside of her when he follows without protest.
Sitting across from Ace, Nancy can’t help but soak him in. It hasn’t been long since she’s seen him last. In fact, she saw him just this morning when he swung by Carson’s office to drop off coffee. But time moves so slow without him and so fast when he’s near. He’s like a shot of adrenaline. Nancy craves-
As she always does, she shakes herself out of that particular train of thought before it goes anywhere.
“What’s the sitch?” asks Ace.
Without any preamble, Nancy says “Gil Bobbsey.”
The smile that Ace has worn since he entered wavers. When he clocks that Nancy is serious, it falls completely. “What about him?”
“I need you to set us up.”
Nancy is surprised by Ace’s reaction, and not unpleasantly. His eyes widen in shock, brows shooting towards his hair. His mouth gapes open, shut, open, shut. No words come out. It is not the chill, happy-to-help response she expected.
Speaking slowly so as not to rattle him further, Nancy asks “do you think you can do that?”
“Do I- uh.” Unable to meet her eyes, Ace frowns at the ketchup bottle on the table.
“Ace,” she prompts.
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “I mean- not yeah. Gil Bobbsey?”
Slightly frustrated, Nancy nods jerkily. “That’s what I said.”
“You want me to set you up with him on, like, a date?”
“No, set us up for bank robbery.” Ace seems to relax at this new suggestion before she makes herself clear. “ Yes, Ace. On a date.”
It is an understatement to say Nancy’s objective here is non-romantic. Getting Gil Bobbsey to go on a date with her is purely business. She knows, though, that Gil would never believe Nancy if she suggested they simply go out with each other. He wouldn’t even believe her if she started a friendly conversation with him on the street. As he shouldn’t. Gil is not an idiot in the slightest, and like everyone who has the misfortune of knowing her, he is aware that everything Nancy does is with intention.
Be that as it may, Nancy needs him to get her onto the Hudson’s Gorham Woods property. To do that, she needs to butter him up. The only way she can think to is by enchanting his ass off under circumstances that are seemingly out of both of their control and totally not orchestrated by Nancy’s own hand.
Masterminding a blind date seemed like the best idea.
But Ace doesn’t need to know all of the details.
Eyes narrowing suspiciously, he points out “you don’t like Gil.”
It doesn’t take a smart cookie to figure that one out, and Ace is a veritable genius.
“That’s what I thought too,” says Nancy. She makes a point not to lie and say that now, out of nowhere, she does like Gil. “You know what they say about love and hate, though. Fine line-”
“Okay! Okay.” Breath expelling in a huff, Ace runs a hand through his hair, struggling with how to respond.
One booth over, Nancy spies Bess lingering nearby, pretending to wipe down a table.
“Gil is very into this game of cat and mouse we play,” Nancy says to fill the silence. “So I’m thinking you and I could organize a blind date? He shows up here, I show up here, he’s surprised, I act surprised-”
Nancy is interrupted again by Ace when suddenly he blurts out “double date!”
Bess’ head pops up behind him. Her eyes are bulging, darting dangerously between Nancy and Ace.
Nancy herself is stunned speechless. He can’t possibly mean to suggest she and Gil go on a double date with Ace and Amanda, can he? Surely, that would not go well. Nancy would struggle to be cordial to Amanda, as usual, Amanda would get frustrated with what she calls Ace and Nancy’s “secret language,” as usual, and Gil would sit back and watch the night go up in flames, stoking the fire himself if need be. As usual.
Nancy would never accomplish her mission on a double date with them.
Unless…
“Hey, Amanda isn’t scared of Gorham Woods after her run-in with that cop car, right?” asks Nancy.
Ace quirks a brow. “You mean her run-in with the Wraith?”
“Sure.”
“Uh, I don’t think so,” he says. “Why?”
Because Amanda is unafraid and ready for adventure. She could be much easier to sway into returning to the woods than her brother. For reasons Nancy would rather not get into, she would prefer Gil’s help over Amanda’s, but if she fails to convince one Bobbsey, it wouldn’t hurt to have the other in her back pocket.
Nancy only briefly considers telling this to Ace. Instead, she says “a double date sounds like a good idea.”
“That is the worst idea I have ever heard,” Bess exclaims from one table over, “and we thought to summon a sea demon .”
Ignoring her, Nancy keeps her eyes trained on Ace. “Like I said, just don’t tell Gil his date is me .”
“Nancy!” Bess cries. “Ace! You two are being daft!”
A part of Nancy understands why she would think that. Nancy and Ace going on a date together, but not with each other, is not ideal for a few reasons. The biggest reason being that it would be Ace and Nancy participating.
It has been insinuated to Nancy more than once and by more than one person that perhaps her feelings for Ace are something other than platonic. She's sure Amanda has suggested as much to Ace as well.
Undeniably, their connection is a strong one. It’s built on the foundation of soldiering through the food service industry together and strengthened in a way only near death experiences and encounters with the spirit realm are able to do. It does not hurt that they are like-minded, or that they understand each other, or that they get along surprisingly well for two people who, on the surface, are nothing alike.
The inexplicable draw they have to each other is another story. That aspect of their relationship is not so easily explained away. Nancy isn’t sure she could if she tried.
Nevertheless, the accusations hold no weight. Obviously.
That doesn't stop the topic from being a sore one for all parties involved.
So, in this instance of double-dating, Bess may have a point. Their plan sounds like a good recipe for disaster. Potentially harmful. Daft, if you will.
Again, they ignore Bess.
From across the table, Ace regards Nancy thoughtfully. She can see in his eyes that he is mulling over their history and the implications of what they are scheming. He is second guessing himself. Nancy would be lying if she didn’t say she were now reconsidering too.
Yet, before they can overthink it, Ace seals the deal. “It’s a date.”
Bess’ anguished groan echoes loudly through The Claw.