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reviewdiaries · 10 months

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Love and ferrets - Ace in 4x06

Ace, Ace, Ace, my dude, you had the best of intentions but boy you did not think this through.

Two of Ace’s love languages are acts of service and sacrifice. Any attempts to break the curse where it’s just his life on the line and he is there, no holds barred, ready and willing yes please let’s give that curse what for. As soon as there’s even the slightest hint that Nancy might be in danger through his actions and he immediately leaps to there’s no way we’re ever trying that again thanks. He doesn’t care how miserable it makes him, he can’t bear the thought of a world without her in it. Combine that with his serious issues with self-worth and he convinces himself whilst Nancy is in the hospital that it isn’t worth it - that he isn’t worth it. He can’t give her everything of himself, everything that he thinks she needs and wants and deserves, so he’ll sacrifice what he could have with her so that she has the chance to find that with someone else. Has he thought that through fully? No, but that’s beside the point, it’s the thought that counts. Calculation number one where he’s added two things together and come up with the sad emoji.

So he doesn’t think he’s worth it - definitely not worth Nancy’s life, or even the possibility of her life. That means they have to go back. Only untangling what they were to each other before is another calculation he’s failed to accurately make. They’ve both had feelings for each other for much longer than the other realised, and that’s impacted every part of their relationship. Their friendship is coloured by those feelings, by time and emotion and acts of love that they have performed again and again and again. They can’t just go back to being friends because they have loved each other (in so many different variations) from so early on that it’s impossible to unravel.

But Ace looks back at their relationship and he settles, no matter how deliberately, on one of his love languages to show that they’re ok - acts of service. He’s always made himself useful - to the investigation, the crew, Nancy. Tying back into his self worth, he thinks they wouldn’t want to be friends with him unless he’s useful, so he’s constantly trying to prove himself, trying to prove that they need him (they do need him, but not just for the reasons he thinks they do). If he can do this, tie up this investigation that’s been plaguing her for weeks, this will magically fix everything, it will show her (and him) that things can go back to how they were, he can be useful to her, he can make this thing easier, and then magically, it will all be ok. He’s not really looking beyond the immediate because that would require a bit more self awareness than he’s really got capacity for right now, so he fixates on this.

GIF Credit @nancy-drew

This one thing, he does this one thing and it makes it right. This one thing and she’ll look at him like she used to. This one thing and the bitter taste in his mouth will ease and he’ll stop feeling like he’s cut off a limb and rewind back to when he just had an idea in his head of Nancy, rather than the reality of her warm and soft in his arms.

GIF Credit @nancy-drew

He’s stopped looking after himself, thrown himself into his work. He’s barely eating, only when other people stop by or send him meals does he think to wolf anything down to keep himself going. Otherwise it’s methodical work and organising parts and small puzzles that aren’t related to Nancy so his mind doesn’t tear itself apart thinking about her and the last time he saw her, right here in the morgue looking beautiful and heartbroken and telling him about finding another great love.

Lying to her is hard work, so if he doesn’t see her and focuses on something else maybe it will get easier, and he doesn’t have to think about the fact that she’s it for him, there won’t be another great love, not like her, never like her.

He can’t bear to go back to his flat with its shattered barometer and sheets that still smell like her from when she lay there with that beautiful smile on her face and told him all the ways he’d touched her. She is in so many places for him, but at least in the morgue it’s cold and impersonal.

He becomes so fixated on this one thing, finding Chunky, that he keeps on not being where he should be. He’s not there helping Bess with the portal, because that would mean seeing Tristan and he’s still trying to work out why it stings that Tristan was there with her when she got sucked through, that Tristan left her there. If it had been him with her none of this would have happened, he would have protected her, he wouldn’t have just left her there.

And he’s not helping look at the school, because he trusts Nick and George and right now he might be able to solve this other thing and when Nancy’s back he’s got an excuse to see her, to take Chunky to her and they can talk and maybe he can unknot more of how he’s feeling.

But he is there at the portal because of course he’s going to go through and save her. He should have been there in the first place, and he’s not letting Tristan go through and risk screwing it up again. But everyone else argues for Tristan and he ends up pinned in place waiting for a sight of Nancy, to know she’s ok, to see her and reassure himself that she’s ok she’s safe, it’s over.

Only Tristan is practically dragging her through the portal and she’s got blood on her and he can’t do anything. He is paralysed by the portal and the curse and how tied up everything is and he can’t even touch her, pull her through, reassure himself that she’s ok. He can’t take his eyes off her. And when she quips how’s everyone else's day going his laugh feels shaky with the depth of his relief, and all he can do is breathe through the adrenaline that’s spiked through him with fear.

They go their separate ways, and she’s with George and Bess so he knows she’s ok, and then he gets the call that she’s not, and he runs. He should be there with her to hold her hand as Bess makes the cut, smooth the hair from her forehead and whisper that it’s ok, that it’s going to be ok. But he’s too late. He’s been so fixated on getting a trap and trying to catch Chunky for her, trying to prove himself, trying to take his mind off all the ways he thinks he’s failing, that he almost isn’t there in time. And he bursts through the door and Nancy is cowering and blood stained and pale and he doesn’t think, doesn’t hesitate to protect her. Love isn’t about dying for each other only when it’s Nancy’s life on the line. Ace will put himself in front of her every time. He will step up and hold the line, protect her with his life every time. Every. Single. Time.

GIF Credit @nancy-drew

She knows that. The look they share after the spider is dead shows that. He loves her and he won’t say it, can’t say it, can’t act on it, but he shows her in so many ways so many times.

And then she collapses and he flings himself over to her but the god damn curse stops him from reaching out. He’s trained himself so well not to reach for her, even when it’s killing him not to hold her, reassure himself that she’s there, she’s ok, that this too shall pass and she’s still breathing and it’s just the aftershocks of having a spider cut out of her.

He feels untethered, shaken by the events of the day, but reassured by the moment shared with Nancy. Something is still there, it’s not completely broken whatever it is between them now. He keeps pushing her away, desperately trying to convince her it’s better if they don’t try, better that they’re not together. But he is so terrified to lose her, he keeps trying to find ways to bring them back together again.

And then. And then. Chunky. It’s a sign that things are on the right track. It’s a sign that things are going to be ok. It’s a sign that all isn’t lost and they can find their way back to each other. It’s a reason to seek her out, to see her, when he’s been telling himself he can’t. Every time he finds himself going to see her and has to turn himself around. Every time he’s reached for his phone to message her and tells himself he can’t. What would he say? He can’t tell her the truth - he loves her, he misses her, please let them keep trying. He can’t reopen that - not convinced that she’d say yes, convinced himself he’s not worth it, convinced himself that in the scales of him and Nancy the world would be fine without him but crumble without Nancy.

He’s so excited to see her and he’s so proud of all the work he did, and this right here is proof that they’ll be ok and they can still be friends and they can still mean something to each other and it isn’t ruined and he can still be helpful and she’ll still want to be around him. He doesn’t even knock, just slips in because he can hear music. And it’s like the bottom is punched out of his stomach, like his heart has been clenched in an iron fist. Because she’s slow dancing with someone else, not just anyone else, Tristan. Who has made it very clear he likes Nancy and he’s there in a stupid suit and there are flowers on the table and he’d told her to move on, but honestly the words and the reality were two separate things that he hadn’t really figured out how to put together yet. Two jigsaw pieces that he can look at in isolation but don’t fit no matter how he jams them together.

He wanted things to go back, but he realises in those moments watching her slow dance with someone else - someone who can hold her and touch her and kiss her - that going back was never an option. They could only ever move forward, it was just a choice about how they did that, and his fear of losing her dictated which path they took. He could be there, not holding her (maybe holding her) searching for ways to break the curse (already having broken the curse), laughing with her, teasing her, deepening the intimate connection they’d already forged in those days after she finally told him about the curse. Sharing time and memories and getting to see her, be with her, be the one that she looks at with love. But he let fear decide and now he’s left holding a ferret in a cage watching her with someone else.

He can’t think logically that maybe Nancy’s hurting too, maybe that’s why she’s reaching for comfort from anyone because Ace has broken her heart more thoroughly than she ever dreamed possible, and he’s made his feelings about their relationship perfectly clear. No, all he can see right there is all the ways he’s lacking, and all the ways Tristan is not.

And Chunky was hope. Chunky was a tether holding him to Nancy. Chunky was finding a path back to each other. But now there’s no hope. There’s just letting her go, no matter how much it hurts. There’s just shame that he thought he was still important. There’s just embarrassment over how revealing it would be to hand her Chunky, to leave Chunky where she could find him. Because Nick would tell her what had happened and it would be tied back to Ace, and how can he brush those feelings off, pretend he doesn’t feel as deeply as he does, pretend she isn’t consuming his thoughts and his actions and desires.

He can’t bear it, so he takes Chunky and lets him loose - nearby so hopefully he’ll find his way to Nancy anyway but it can’t be tied back to him. But as he does this (another small act of love, acts of service, acts of sacrifice) Chunky bites him and god that hurts. All of it. Everything about this hurts.

GIF Credit @nevenaxh

He can barely hold himself together as he gets back into Florence and drives, screeching away from Icarus Hall like the gates of hell have opened behind him. Like his heart is breaking. Like he’s shattered into pieces and some of them are being left behind.