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“I know what it’s like to kiss you now!”
The words echoed in his mind on an endless loop. There was no escaping the bitterness in what should have been sweet, celebratory words. The look of utter betrayal in her eyes as he tried to explain the fear that paralyzed him. There were so many ways he should have died tonight but that withering look was chief among them.
Laying in his darkened apartment alone, Ace didn’t bother with wiping at tears as they spilled down his temples and soaked into his hair. Ignoring another call from Bess, he stared into the darkness around him and willed his body to go numb but the infernal sigil Nancy painted into his skin still burned. It was a mild sensation but a pervasive one that felt like it was still searing itself into his skin even now when all hope had fizzled out.
His Nancy Scar.
It tingled at first, largely from the excitement of such an intimate, vulnerable moment as Nancy delicately painted the sigil across his chest. The tender look in her eye as she branded him under her protection. Then a sizzling sensation that followed as the mark began to take hold. So quickly it had become a natural part of him, a warm feeling that pulsed against his heart the rest of the day. Logically he assumed it would fade after his twenty-four hours were up, but for now the only comfort he had was the feeling that it was eternal. That the stinging pain would smolder against his skin forever as a reminder of all that he’d almost lost.
It was easier to sit with this dull burning sensation than it was to recall the desperate gasping as Nancy lay dying in his arms. How could they have been so stupid. Of course Temperance would know about the spell. Of course she’d put every safeguard she could in place to make sure Nancy suffered. How arrogant was it to try and defeat Temperance’s curse in her own house? It was like they were asking for her to thwart them.
He ignored yet another call from Bess, but it only incited a flurry of texts. He threw his phone across the room where it continued to vibrate softly somewhere in the darkness.
Taking a shaky breath he reached up to touch his bare chest, slowly tracing his fingers along the lines as they continued to ache. The skin beneath the paint felt slightly raised but glossy smooth. Like a wound already healed. It wouldn’t matter if the burning sensation ever went away, the scars would always remain. A reminder. A penance.
He’d been so hopeful, so eager, so arrogant. He’d been so angry over Nancy’s fear of a hallucination he didn’t live through. In her experience he had died, bloodied and twisted by the side of a cold muddy road with no one to help her. In his experience she was at least warm and conscious, desperately trying to croak out affirmations of comfort as their friends swirled around them calling for help. As she gasped for air he silently willed himself to slip away too, ready to follow her into whatever afterlife Temperance had planned.
In the end she lived, but Ace still felt like he was crumpled on the cold stone floor quietly dying. The grief that continued to haunt him would never leave. How could she not understand that? How could Nancy not understand the fear that now plagued him knowing the next wrong move could be her last? At least when it had been Ace’s life on the line Nancy was cautious, but if it was hers at stake then all bets were off. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t live in a world where she could be taken from him at any moment. It was better to live in a world where she was alive even if it meant that he’d never again know what it was like to kiss her.
The hand tracing the sigil moved up to brush across his lips, remembering their kiss. His first, his only. The memory shook what ounce of composure he had left and his body was wracked with sobs. Digging the heel of his palms into his eyes as he tried to will away the images that flickered through his mind. Every damned moment where the light had hit her just right, or she’d looked at him, or brushed against him, or stood so close he truly didn’t know where he ended and she began. Every memory of her now was another knife to his heart. Tearing it to shreds beneath his Nancy-scarred chest.
Didn’t she understand- he wasn’t saying he wanted to move on. It was just the opposite. He couldn’t move forward. He couldn’t even go backward, he couldn’t move in any direction. All he could do now was sit in this moment forever tortured by the scars he now carried, taking what little comfort he had in knowing this was still a world in which Nancy exists.
He just needed her safe for once. To stop running into danger all too willing to give herself away in the name of defeating their next enemy. She’d done enough, she’d risked enough, all while he’d sat on the sidelines trying to be the one constant in her life that didn’t take anything from her. Couldn’t she see by now that he only wanted to give to her?
Pulling himself upright he trudged across the apartment to retrieve his phone. He straightened his spine as he texted Bess back, letting her know he was ready to get to work. It was his turn to risk it all and Nancy’s turn to rest. She was scarred enough. He would risk it all to find a way to break the curse or die trying.
~~~
“But watching you collapse almost killed me.”
How dare he.
Didn’t he know that she’d already been dead before? That she died right along with him on the side of that cold and muddy road?
He’d had barely a taste of what Nancy had been made to experience. Maybe her near-death was more real than his total death but that didn’t make it worse. He didn’t know the weight of cold and lifeless love as it sagged limply in your arms. When he’d cried out for help it had been there. He got to be comforted in the knowledge that he’d saved her life and she was still here to share in it with him. He still had no idea what it truly felt like to have all of that taken away and yet he was the one with the audacity to back down?
She’d already lost too much precious time paralyzed by the fear of loss and he was the only reason she’d found any strength to try. He gave her the courage to hope, convinced her that together they could do anything and then he ran away. How could he do this, drag her heart out into the open and leave it gutted in her hands. Maybe she hadn’t been happy before but at least she was surviving. Now she was trapped here, tortured by the look of utter defeat in his eyes and the memory of his real lips against hers. She couldn’t move forward alone, and there was no going backward. Too much had been laid bare.
Her fingers twitched recalling the intimate moment between them as she painted the sigil across his chest. Using the brush as an extension of her fingers so that the tender caress didn’t render their efforts moot. She hadn’t expected it to sear into his skin the way it had and his muscles had rippled slightly as he braced himself against the sensation. It had given her an odd sense of territorial pride, marking him as hers to protect. So much hope in a few brush strokes, the tension between them unbearably palpable as they’d taken that first step toward defying Temperance and her sadistic fortune.
Nancy grabbed blindly at the first thing she could find on her desk and hurled it across the room. Her rage-filled screams echoed mournfully through the empty hall as she grabbed at the next closest item and hurled it into the darkness around her as well. Assaulting the walls of her tomb as if she could somehow purge Temperance’s smug aura from the world. When there was no indication the universe had bothered to notice her tantrum, Nancy sank to the floor, letting angry tears consume her.
Every memory of his smile, his voice, his fingers assaulted her as they flashed in a loop. Images blurring into less of a vision and more of a sense memory, a dull reminder of the happiness and warmth that radiated from him whenever she was in his space. Maybe that was why she’d always stood so close to him, to keep warm and take comfort that in her darkest days she could always find her way back to his light. Ever present, ever patient, ever persistent Ace who had promised her countless times “I’ll be here”.
She rubbed her thumb against her opposite palm, tracing roughly over the jagged scar that rose from her skin. What once was a smooth and faint line had grown rougher and more prominent from repeated use as she’d given, almost too eagerly, a piece of herself whenever called upon. She had given herself away to the Agleaca (more than once), to the Icarans and Women in White, to the Wraith, and to Temperance. All while he had stood by the sidelines, claiming to love her for years though he never bothered to ask for any piece of her for himself. Didn’t he understand that he was who she wanted to give to? Who was he to treat her so fragile when trial after trial had toughened her just like her scar?
He could cling to his desperate idea that she was soft and safe and in need of protecting but Nancy knew better. She had already experienced death in ways he couldn’t fathom. She had lied to herself, and denied herself and it had gotten her nothing but loneliness. She was done with fear and despair. She was done with losing. Temperance was dead, she didn’t get to win anymore.
Picking herself up Nancy wiped at her puffy eyes and straightened her spine. It was time to get back to work. If Ace needed a break that was fine, his own scars were still too fresh. He could take his time letting them toughen over while Nancy ploughed ahead. She would have her happiness even if it killed her.