Work Text:
"You know, maybe we don't have to hang out in Ramshackle. Courtyard, anyone?" Ace said after Ajax mentioned that he and Deuce should help out with cleaning Ramshackle since they tend to interrupt him when he's trying to clean.
"Oh come on, it isn't that bad, it's just a lot of dust and things needing to be moved around," Ajax had gloves on and there was a wood plank leaned against the wall. Some of the wallpaper inside the lounge area was torn, paintings were crooked, dust was on almost every surface, and a cob web here and there. "You two are here a lot, so you could help a little, if you want. Plus, if you help out, you'd be able to sleep in actual beds if either of you wanted to spend the night for whatever reason."
Ace had to admit, that was tempting, especially since that sofa gets uncomfortable when sleeping on it two nights in a row. "Fine."
Ajax stepped aside to let Ace and Deuce in, he handed them each a pair of gloves and they got to work.
Ace was assigned to dust, Deuce to picking up trash, and Ajax was mopping and cleaning the paintings and walls.
The three teens were peacefully cleaning in silence before Deuce tried to make conversation. "How do you two think you did on Trein's test?"
Ace sighed, "it was tough, but I think I managed."
Ajax kept cleaning the frame of a painting, "I think I did pretty good, what about you?"
"I hope I did well, I studied a lot for it."
Ajax nodded, "I'm sure you did great, Deuce."
Another thirty minutes passed, Ace and Deuce were sitting on the sofa and Ajax was sitting in a chair with Grim on his lap. They were talking about anything that came to mind: their classes, Floyd's sea creature themed nicknames, how many overblots was considered too many for a school to have, etc.
"How did Chenya even get onto Night Raven's campus? Isn't he missing his classes at his school or something? Wait, does the school even have a security system?" Ajax questioned.
Deuce thought for a moment, "that.. is a good question. How did he?"
"I'm pretty sure he just comes at night and sticks around." Ace said while messing with a loose thread on his jacket.
"That's odd."
"What's more odd is that Riddle thought Trey was serious about the oyster sauce being good in a tart," Ace said.
"You also thought he was serious. You said it might've been like putting chocolate in curry," Deuce pointed out.
"Yeah, but I didn't use it"
"Because we had Trey there to tell us that he was joking," Ajax reminded Ace.
Another thirty minutes pass and they're back to cleaning. Ajax does eventually need a ladder to reach a painting that was particularly high on the wall.
Ace had been able to reach the bottom of the frame, Deuce barely touched it, and Ajax couldn't find a ladder. So they came up with the brilliant idea of one of them getting on a chair and another would be on that person's shoulders to be able to reach the painting to clean it.
Somehow, they managed to do it without injury. It wasn't until fifteen minutes later that Ajax came to the realization that Deuce could've used some levitation magic to get him up to the painting and back down. He didn't mention it though.