#stancy au

She scans the room as she approaches the bar, noting the clusters of college kids and biker toughs with equal cool disinterest.  He’s seen little lambs taller than she is, but she carries herself like a lioness.  He’s just about settled on a June wedding when she takes a seat at the bar, eyes him with the same unconcerned detachment she seems to have for everything, and he notices something else.  Something he definitely has seen before.  Something that makes his blood boil.

“Pint of whatever’s on tap, please,” she says, and it’s pleasant enough, but she’s looking right past him with her one perfect eye and the other one ringed in barely-concealed purple.  He nods, starts drawing the pint.  Looks up surreptitiously when he sees she’s looking down.  She peels off her pink plaid workshirt, visibly stiff in the shoulders, and lets it fall to the back of the barstool.  Beneath it she wears a grimy white tank, steel-cable arms, and a whole constellation of scars, scrapes, and bruises.  And, jarringly, a big black tattoo painted stark against her breast.  

“Here you go,” he says, setting a napkin and the glass of beer in front of her.  “I have an amber on tap too, if you don’t like it.”

She spares him another glance.  “Thanks.”  She pulls her wallet out of her pocket, and while she’s fishing for a bill, he peeks down at the card slots.  Sees a couple of IDs.  Patricia Smyth, of Massachusetts.  Deborah Harry, of Illinois.  She pulls out a fiver and tucks the wallet away.  “Keep the change,” she mutters, nudging the bill towards him and draining half the glass.  “It’s good,” she reports, nodding, when he stands there watching her drink.  

“Good,” he says, and tucks the cash away in its drawer.  Then, careful and deliberate, “Can I help you with anything else?”

She looks up again, and this time, she sees him.  Graces him with a generous, world-weary smile.  “I’ll have another one of these,” she says, holding up her half-finished drink.  “Otherwise, I’m fine.”  

“You sure?” 

“Yup,” she says, with finality.  “I’m sure.”

He starts pulling the next pint, and mulls over the conflicting virtues of leaving an uninterested lady alone, versus catching out a rat when he smells one.  He opts for the choice that keeps her talking with him.  “Haven’t seen you here before, are you new in town?” he asks, just shoot-the-shit casually, as he replaces her empty beer glass with a full one.  

“No, just a work thing,” she says.  “Just passing through.”

He picks up a rag and wipes the clean bartop.  “Oh? What do you do?”

“Game and Wildlife Commission,” she replies.

“You like working with animals?”

She snorts softly.  “You could say that.”

He leans down to rest his forearms on the bar, near enough to detect the blend of lilac, vanilla, copper pennies, and gunpowder wafting from the soft, curly cloud of her hair.  “Did an animal give you all those bruises?” he asks, barely above a whisper.  She glances at him, well inside her bubble of personal space, and doesn’t flinch.

“What’s your name?” she asks evenly.

“Steve,” he says.

She smiles sweetly, but it’s ice water underneath.  “Steve, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I don’t need it.  Really.”

“Okay,” he concedes, and stands upright with palms upraised.  “Backing off.”

“Thank you,” she says.

“One more question?” he asks, nothing if not a tireless pusher of his luck.  She raises an eyebrow.  “Will you tell me your name?”

She smiles again, and he can see it thawing.  “Nancy,” she says.  Adds, after a moment, “Wilson.”

“Nancy Wilson,” he repeats, wonders if it's any truer than Patricia, or Deborah.   “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You too, Bartender Steve.”

“Bar Owner Steve,” he corrects. 

She chuckles, and drinks another large dent out of her beer.  “I beg your pardon.” 

It’s coming up on Happy Hour and a fresh wave of sadsacks starts filtering in, and he’s too busy to talk until the night shift comes in - that being his best friend and only employee.  She eyeballs him and the stranger with raised-brow suggestion, and he shrugs.  She takes up a position at the opposite end of the bar, just as he notices Nancy getting ready to leave.

“Sick of me already?” he asks, hurrying as unhurriedly as possible back to her spot.

“Duty calls,” she says, dropping another bill on the bar, and he wishfully thinks he hears a note of regret.

“Wildlife emergency?”

She rolls her eyes.  “You have no idea.”  She stands and retrieves her shirt from the chairback, then flashes him another smile.  “Maybe I’ll stop in again the next time I pass through.”

He smiles back. “I hope you do.”  She turns to leave, and he’s midway through the mental math of shooting a Hail Mary when she flips the plaid back onto her shoulders, and he notices the handgun sticking out of the back of her jeans.  She disappears through the door, and he makes a decision.  “Robin, watch the shop,” he shouts, grabbing the self-defense swatter he keeps by the cash drawer and vaulting over the bar.  She yells something confused-sounding back, but he’s dashing too fast to hear it. 

He hits fresh air and waning daylight, looks around, and sees her climbing into her wagon.  He runs over and puts himself between her headlights and the exit.  It only occurs to him when she’s blaring the horn how serial-killer insane he must look.  “What the hell are you doing?” she shouts angrily out the window.  It’s a fair question, and he lets the bat drop before he answers it.

“I know something bad is happening,” he says.  “I saw your fake IDs.  And your gun.”

“That’s none of your business, Steve!” she shoots back.  

He shrugs slightly.  “You bring a gun into my bar, I get to make it my business.”

She huffs, considers.  “It’s really not what you think, you know.”

“Okay,” he agrees.  “So what is it?”

“For Christ’s sake,” she grumbles.  Then, “Get in. Bring the bat.”

Nancy fires her shotgun at the moon, and the thing whips her head around and roars, and the spell is broken.  He takes a swing the Babe would be proud of, and she staggers to her knees.  “Get back!”  Nancy yells, reappearing out of the ether.  He jumps, lands sprawled flat on his ass, and watches her upend the spice jar over the swiping, shrieking lady-beast.  Then she steps back, flicks her lighter on, and tosses it.  The thing goes up like a scarecrow soaked in gasoline, and showers them both in greasy soot that reeks of rotten eggs and Greek barbecue.  It’s out as fast as it caught, and the night resumes its indifferent silence.

“Nancy?” he asks, with what he feels is commendable calm in the face of his heartbeat sonic booming in his ears, “What the fuck?”  

She comes striding over, and he can practically see the exhilaration coming off her in waves.  She smiles with a hunger that looks eerily familiar, and reaches out a hand for him.  “That was great!” she says, as he takes her hand.  He rises, but doesn’t truly find his feet until she lets go again.

“That was great?” he repeats, brushing off his jeans with equally dirty hands.  “That was a horror show! What the fuck?”

“I love it when a plan comes together,” she says, and starts marching off in another inscrutable direction.

He follows.  “That wasn’t an animal.  That definitely wasn’t a person.  What the fuck was that thing?”

“I told you,” she says, without looking back.  “A lamia.”

“An actual, real monster,” he presses.  

This time she throws him an impatient look over her shoulder.  “Yes!”

“Because monsters are real.”

She stops, turns to face him.  “Yes! I told you!  Weren’t you listening?”

“I heard you,” he says defensively.  “I just thought you were being eccentric.”

She snorts.  “And you followed me anyway?”  He shrugs helplessly.  “Then, that’s on you, tiger.”  She starts forward again, and he plods along in sulky silence for a few dozen feet.

“What are we looking for now?” he asks eventually. “Are there more of them?”

She shakes her head, then lifts a dead bough half-obscuring a cavelike entrance to a thicket.  “I think this is it.”  She ducks inside and shines her flashlight around, and he takes a half-step in behind her.  Counts one . . . two . . . five corpses, all Cryptkeeper-dry with ribs sticking up like crown roasts.  She looks back at him.  “Five missing people,” she confirms, her jubilant mood somewhat dampened again.

“Now what?” he asks, as she sighs heavily and turns back in the direction they came.

“I’ll call it in anonymously from a few states over,” she says.  “And then they’ll make up whatever’s easiest to believe.”

“How do you know?” 

She shrugs. “You believed I was crazy,” she says, and he can’t, in good conscience, deny it.

“I’m sorry,” he says.  “I was wrong.”

She grins.  “I’m sorry I used you to lure out the monster.”

“Yeah, I’ve had women use me for my body before, but-“ 

She gives him a shove, and they laugh together.  “I’m glad you were here,” she says. “Don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

“As long as you’re duly impressed,” he replies.

“Starstruck.”  A short hike ahead, she turns right at the crossroads in the trail, and he’s once again amazed at her ability to tell one identical stand of trees from a thousand others.  After what he just witnessed, he’s not sure he could tell his ass from his elbow.

“So how does one become a monster hunter?” he asks, as they plod towards the rest stop light barely visible up ahead.

“Long, boring story,” she says.  “You first.  I want to know how one comes to own the Keg Kingdom.”

He chuckles.  “Well, I hope you’re ready for a wild one,” he says.  “My trust fund matured, and then I bought it.”

“Harrowing!” she exclaims.

“Yours can’t be any more boring than mine,” he cajoles.  “I wanna know.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you did,” she replies, and sighs heavily.  “I guess you could say I was born into it.”

“In like a family business kinda way, or a shadowy secret society way?”

“Yeah,” she agrees.  “Just like that.”  

“You’re very good at talking without actually saying anything,” he observes.  “Are you doing that on purpose?”  They step out of the trees and onto the gravel, and the night opens up, mild and starry.  

“Comes with the job,” she says, and shrugs.  She hurries towards the car and unslings her backpack.  He follows as she opens the back of the wagon, spots bags and canisters and a full-sized foot locker.  She tosses in her things and pulls it closed.  

She turns, and he doesn’t back up.  “Really,” he asks. “Why are you doing this?”

She leans back against the car.  “Because I’ve seen things, and I can’t unsee them.   Can’t unknow what I know.”

“Then where does that leave me?”

She smiles softly.  “You’re the unsung town hero,” she says, and hops up in her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek.  He catches her by the shoulders on the downswing, and kisses her full on the lips.  She doesn’t shove him away when he lets go.  She smiles up at him again, even softer.  “Let’s get you back to your bar.”

The ride back doesn’t feel long, exactly.  It’s almost nice, with the open-window breezes, the crackly soft-rock radio, and the lulling, lilting tilt of the highway.  But he can’t really relax and enjoy it.  Not with the goodbye looming.  Not with the dangling unless.  

They pull into the bar’s narrow lot, and he’s pleased, if not surprised, to see the place dark and intact.  “I live on the second floor,” he says, before she can even put it in park.  “Come in.”

“Steve . . .” she starts.

“You’re obviously living out of your car.  And, no offense, but you need a shower.  I’ll take the couch, I don’t care.  Come in.”

“You’re full of shit,” she says, but she keeps smiling, so he keeps swinging.

“Don’t you get lonely?” he asks.  “Don’t you want to have something?”

“Sure I do,” she replies, and the smile falters a bit.  “But everything costs.”

“This doesn’t have to,” he says, aiming for a little cool indifference.  “I already let you use me once.”

She eyes him shrewdly.  “You know I can’t stay.”

“Then don’t stay.  Just come in.”

“Is that enough for you?  If whatever this is begins and ends now?”

“Yes,” he lies, and neither of them believe it, and they both let it stand.  “If it’s a choice between now or never, then I want you to come in now.”

This is a mistake.  Hard fact.  But there are harder facts, like vengeful ghosts, and vampires, and literal Hell itself.  There’s the fact that on a bad day, she can barely tell herself from the things she’s sworn to destroy.  But, to err is human, and if she can look this towering Colossus of a mistake square in its Bambi eyes and make it anyway, it proves she must be human, too.  Can’t do the wrong thing without the free will to do it.

Can’t just take something she wants without rationalizing it, either.  Can’t just want to feel good, for goodness’ sake.

She turns off the shower with a pang of regret and steps out, grabbing the fluffy towel he sent her in with.  She pats herself down, wrings out her hair, and tucks the towel around her chest.  Takes a moment to inspect the state of her arms.  No fewer bruises, but no new ones.  A fresh scrape or two, but nothing bleeding.  She swipes a hand across the fogged-up bathroom mirror and checks her face.  The shiner’s uglier than ever, going yellow-green at the edges, but there’s not much to be done about that now.  She gives her wet hair a tousle, makes a kissy-face at her reflection, and calls it good enough.  Slips on her skin of well-rehearsed self-confidence like a glove.  There’s no time like the present, and there’ll be hours to overthink on the road. 

She opens the bathroom door, and the steam all flows out in a rush, and the breeze that replaces it is AC cool.  Steve looks over from his kitchen, towel-damp and drowsy-looking, in a thin pair of sweats. “You feel better, right?” he asks.

“Much,” she agrees, and starts padding over. “You have a nice place.”

“Thanks,” he says.  “I did the reno myself.  It was practically bare studs when I bought it.” He pulls out one of his kitchen chairs, and offers it to her.  Then, he offers her a t-shirt from the pile of laundry on his table.  “In case you don’t just want to wear a towel,” he explains. “Not that I’d object.”

“Thank you,” she accepts.  It’s worn paper-thin with washes, and sports the ghost of a long-faded high school mascot, and she doubts it’ll offer much more coverage than the towel does.  But he respectfully averts his eyes, so she pulls it over her head.  Breathes in the homey scent of dryer sheets.  Lets herself enjoy something soft, for once.

“Is there time for a drink in your itinerary, or is this more of a wham, bam, thank you, ma’am situation?” He goes to the fridge and grins back over his shoulder.  

“I’ll have a drink,” she says, with a playful scowl.

He comes back with a pair of bottlenecks in his knuckles, hands her one, frosty-cold, and sits opposite.  He raises his beer towards her.  “To a successful hunting trip?” he proposes.

“To the unsung town hero,” she replies, and clinks his bottle, and he hides a bashful little smile behind his beer.  She takes a few long, icy swallows.  Lets them drape over her like another comfy layer, and cool her off from the inside out.      

“So, you never answered me, earlier,” he says, settling into his own bottle.  “How’d you get all those bruises?”

She makes a face, looks disdainfully at the black and blue splotches on her arms.  “I pissed off a poltergeist,” she says.  “It threw an antique shop at me.”

He nearly does a spit-take. “Poltergeist is real?”

“It’s all real,” she says, and takes another long swig.  “Anything you can think of.”

“Zombies?”  She nods.  “Dracula?”

She grins.  “I’ve never met him personally, but I’ve heard interesting things.”

 “Werewolves?”

“Werewolves, werebears, werehyenas . . .”

“That’s insane,” he says, and she can see his gears turning like a kid who just learned Santa Claus is real, after all.

She shrugs matter-of-factly.  “I don’t disagree.”  

He leans back, rests a foot on the edge of her seat, and swipes an unruly hank of half-dry hair out of his eyes.  “And it’s just you, all by yourself, against a world full of creature features?”

“No,” she says. “There are lots of us.”

“But you prefer to work alone.”

She sighs.  “It’s not about preference,” she says.  “I work alone, no one else is at risk.”

He chuckles.  “Except the odd random you meet in a bar.”

“That was an extenuating circumstance.”

“I’ll say,” he agrees.  “You were armed and dangerous.”

“So were you!” she points out.  “And I already apologized.”

“And I accept your apology.  I’m just saying -“

“I know what you’re saying,” she interrupts, not unkindly.  “But that’s what it costs.”

“Well,” he says, and punctuates it by planting his empty bottle on the table, “I don’t accept that.”

She laughs.  “Werewolves, you’ll accept.  But a woman choosing to fly solo? That’s where you draw the line?”

“I’m not talking about women.  I’m talking about you.”

She polishes off her beer, and places her bottle neatly next to his.  “You don’t even know me,” she says gently.  

“I want to,” he says, shining his big, soulful headlights right into her eyes, and the bitch of it is, she wants that, too.  Hard fact.  “Another drink?”

The best way to face a hard fact is head on.  The second-best way is escapism.  Nancy shakes her head, stands, and takes off the t-shirt.  Grins at the way his jaw drops when she tosses it at him.  Aims for both birds with one stone.

She makes for his bedroom, and hears his chair scrape behind her, and braces for hurricane impact.  Only, when he catches her, it’s not that.  It’s rough hands brushing softly, and whispery kisses, and arms that encircle without crushing.  It’s warm, tropical rain.  She turns to face him, and he kisses her, honey-sweet.  She lets it wash over her, lets it rinse away all the bullshit.  Not a mistake. A choice.

He lays her down on his bed, as wash-worn and homey-soft as the rest of the life that he’s built here.   Places delicate kisses on every scratch, splotch, and ugly scar.  “You’re beautiful, Nancy,” he murmurs, and from his lips, it sounds true.

“Wheeler,” she says.  “Nancy Wheeler.”  Not a mistake, but a choice.

He smiles down from where he’s hovering above her, near enough to tickle her forehead with his hair.  “Steve Harrington,” he replies.

“I know,” she admits.  “I checked your mail while you were in the shower.”

“They keep sending me those magazines, I’ve begged them to stop.”  She laughs, and he snakes a hand between her legs, and the laughter chokes off in a gasp.  Rough hands brushing softly.  He kisses her, lazy-slow and deeply, and circles her clit at the same pace.   Keeps going, maddeningly slow and relentlessly steady, until she comes.  And again.  Doesn’t just forget her own name, but about a dozen fake ones.  “Steve,” she breathes, while she can still remember his.

“Had enough?” he asks, and his grin’s a little cocky for her taste, but she’s feeling magnanimous. Among other things.  She shakes her head.  “Do you want to?” She nods.  “Okay.”  He reaches past her into his nightstand drawer to fish out a rubber.  She watches unabashedly while he slides off his wet-spotted pants and slips on the condom.  Feels pretty fucking magnanimous, indeed.

And still, he’s not what she expects.  There’s no post-fight frenzy, no adrenaline burn-off.  He doesn’t treat her like a china-doll or anything, but he treats her nice.  Like she deserves better than all the cold comfort she’s been taking.  He doesn’t come until she does, again, and he doesn’t let go of her at all.  Even when they’re sleeping.

When she opens her eyes again, she sees thin light, and mechanically - miserably - crawls out from beneath Steve’s covers, and into another day.  She moves quietly, putting on dirt-stiff clothes.  “Don’t go,” he murmurs, without moving, and she’s heard banshee screams that hurt less in her ears.

She sighs.  “I have to.”

“I know,” he says.  “It’s okay.  I just wanted to say it.”

“I’m glad you did,” she says, and she’s not sure if it’s true, but it feels right.  You’ve got to watch, when it feels right.  It’s not the red flags you have to be afraid of.  It’s the green ones.

She shrugs her shirt on and toes into her boots, and he still hasn’t moved, but he’s watching her.  She goes for the goodbye kiss, intending on something sweet and chaste, but he grabs her, and kisses her like he disagrees on every point.  It’s hard to dismiss his logic, but she has to.  It’s not a mistake, it’s a choice.

“Then how do they make more lamia?”

She pauses, thinks.  “Good question,” she admits, and returns to her drawing.  The marker brushes a ticklish spot, and he flinches.  “Hold still,” she says.  He complies.

“And the squiggly pentagram is . . . magic lamia repellant?”

She shakes her head.  “The squiggly pentagram's for if I’m wrong.”  She looks up and snaps the cap back on the marker.  “All done,” she says, and smiles.  “We can go.”

“Into the dark scary monster woods.”

“Yup!” she agrees, and hops off the edge of the table.  He stays put, just for a second, while her gravel-scrabble bootsteps take her out of his line of sight.  Takes a breath that doesn’t smell of woman.  Tries, with effort, to think with his big brain.  He’s done some pretty stupid things before for very pretty girls,  but never has the line between swept off his feet and abducted for ritual murder seemed so fuzzy.  He hears the back of the wagon slam shut and looks back at her, ladened with a backpack and a shotgun.  Assures himself, somewhat unconvincingly, that he could take her in a fight if he had to.  “Coming?”

“Gonna make a call,” he replies, getting up and making for the pay phone.  

“Somebody waiting for you at home?” she asks, and the smirk in it is enough to remind him what made this little road trip seem at all like a sane idea.  

He shakes his head.  “Just gotta put my affairs in order.”  

“Good idea,” she says, and heads for the washroom, while he fishes a quarter out of his pocket, and dials the bar.  

Robin picks up on the fifth ring, sounding harried.  “Keg Kingdom.”

Casually, “Hey, Robin.”

“Where are you when are you coming back I have been slammed nonstop what the hell is the matter with you?”

“Great,” he says.  “Sounds like we’re making money.”

“Who’s we?” she spits back.

“Listen, I don’t think I’ll be back in tonight, so-”

“Steve I swear to God if you left me here alone to go off somewhere with that girl-”

“- so I’m gonna need you to close her up after.  Also . . . do you have a pen?”

“I have twenty people screaming for service and a keg to change out!”

“I don’t hear any screaming.  Can you get a pen, please?”

“Fine.”  He hears shuffling, one or two relatively polite excuse mes, and the endless background jangling of the jukebox.  “Okay, what?”

He cranes his neck back and squints, and can just barely read it in the lamplight.  “Kansas KAZ 2Y5.  Got it?”

“I got it,” she confirms.  “What is this?”

“Just hang onto it,” he says.  “In case.”

“In case of what, exactly?”

“Don’t worry about it.  Thank you.  I owe you one.”

“You owe me overtime.”

“Okay, good talk, have a fun night!” He hangs up the phone just as Nancy reappears, and turns her flashlight beam on him. 

“Ready?” she asks.

“Something tells me I’m not,” he says, squinting, and obligingly points for her to lead the way.  She tosses him the flashlight, lights another, and sets off confidently in a direction that seems pretty arbitrary to him.  Not that it stops him from following.  “So this is your job? Stalking dangerous predators?”

“Having second thoughts?” she asks, bending to study a branch at the edge of the lot.  She likes whatever she sees, and leads them into the brush.

“Passed second thoughts about thirty miles back,” he replies.  

She snorts.  “Fair enough.  It’s not too late to go wait in the car.”

He shrugs.  “I said I’d help.”

“Yes, you did,” she says.  “To your credit.”  She smiles at him, dazzling even in the dim, dappled moonlight, and he goes all irrational again.

“And I can’t resist a pretty face.”

That makes her full-on laugh.  “Then you’re lucky you met me first.”  He’s got no idea what it’s supposed to mean, but it isn’t a rejection, and lucky is, indeed, how he feels.  “And yeah, that’s basically it.”

“So the Game and Wildlife Commission secretly sends lone agents armed to the teeth into woodlands?”

“I may have made up the part about the Commission,” she admits.

“Like you made up your name?” he asks.

“Not entirely,” she replies quickly. “It’s really Nancy.”

“Uh-huh. And the magic tattoo?” 

She grimaces.  “Unfortunately, that one is very, very true.”  She stops at a crossroads of animal trails, crouches down to look at the dirt, and turns left.  “I think we’re close,” she says, lowering her voice.  “Watch your six.”

He looks around quickly, sees nothing but trees, and holds his bat upright anyway.  “How do you even know what we’re looking for?” he whispers.  

“Have you read a newspaper lately?  Maybe seen some stories about missing people?”

“I guess,” he says. “That’s not all that unusual, though, is it?”

“Five men in two weeks, absolutely nothing in common except they’re all young and good-looking.”

“So?”

“So lamia only prey on young, good-looking men.”  She stops and surveys the area, seeming satisfied, and he’s suddenly got a real bad feeling about where this is going.

“You didn’t bring me with you for protection,” he says.  

She shakes her head and gives him that siren-smile again, and he half-forgives her before she even says it.  “I brought you because I needed bait.”

He sighs and looks up, exasperated, at the sky peeping through the canopy.  “Who could have predicted that this was a bad idea?” he asks the heavens.

“I mean . . . you ran after me with a bat, so.  Must’ve had an inkling.”

He smiles, sarcastically, and nods.  “So what do I do?  Just stand here and look good?”

“More or less,” she replies.  “I’ll be hiding right over there.  If she comes out, I just need you to distract her while I sneak up.”

“You’re not just gonna shoot?”

She shakes her head, and rolls the backpack off her shoulders.  She digs around inside, and pulls out a jar of what looks to him like bath powder.  “Guns won’t kill ‘em.  You have to douse ‘em in salt and rosemary, and flambé.”  She flicks a lighter for emphasis, and starts to retreat into the darkness.

“What do I do if she tries to kill me before you get here?” he asks after her.

“Hit her with your bat,” she whisper-calls back.

“What’s she gonna look like?”

“Pretty girl,” she replies, completely vanished into the trees.  “Be quiet.”

“Oh, yeah, beware of pretty girls in the woods.  Good advice,” he mutters.  Only the wind rustling in the leaves replies.  He kicks at the ground, and idly twirls the bat.  Then, after a minute or two, “Hey, Nancy?”

“Yeah?” she answers softly.

“This means you think I’m cute, right?”