cerys ravensworth đź‘‘ gansey (mintleaf) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2019-01-08 23:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, * jamie, * kit, c: cerys ravensworth, c: jasper atwater |
WHO: Cerys Ravensworth & Jace Atwater
WHEN: Tuesday, January 8, 2019; Afternoon
WHERE: Ravensworth Manor
SUMMARY: Cerys has to pick up some recovered items from her childhood home.
WARNINGS: Mentions of death, housefires :(
Today was not the first time that Cerys had seen the manor house in which she had grown up since the fire that had consumed it and her family. She had driven by it in her orange Camaro more times than she cared to admit to anyone, especially late at night when she couldn't sleep and it was too dark to make out anything but the lines of the house, anyway. This was the first time she'd driven down the paved driveway past the wrought-iron gates, though. It was the first time she'd stood in front of the towering house that seemed even bigger now than she remembered, which was saying something because there was still a large portion of the house that had been eaten away by the flames. It was also the first time that Cerys had been so thoroughly daunted by the prospect of something that even movement seemed impossible. How easily she could remember the smell of the smoke that had filled the room. She could taste the ashes on her tongue, hear the cries of her brother and the shouts from her father, feel the weight of Daya's body as it shielded her from danger. And it was suddenly as hard to pull breath into her lungs as it had been when they'd been filled with smoke and ash. Cerys was nothing if not an expert in composure, though, thanks to a childhood of being the eldest child of Robert Ravensworth, and now a lifetime of being the last remaining of that last name. It came with expectations that she had to uphold, appearances she had to keep, and losing herself in the middle of a few dozen construction workers, a handful of historical society ladies, and those hired to maintain the safety of the renovation was not an appearance appropriate for someone of her name. Instead, Cerys leaned back against the hood of the car for support while she waited for her legs to support her and pretended like she was typing out a quick text on her phone. She forced herself to breathe in and out through her nose, letting her mind wander to things that didn't make her want to cry. The image of her book currently laid open on her mattress at home. The smell of coffee and peppermint. The sound of her friends laughing hysterically at whatever ridiculous stunt Mo and Hannah had come up with. The taste of half-avocado, half-sausage pizza from Sal's. Little by little, the things she conjured up replaced those that paralyzed her and she forced herself to look up from her phone at the house, making herself look at it without really seeing it. She could do this. She was Cerys Ravensworth--she could do anything. Being a firefighter in a small town like Dunhaven didn't bring a ton of excitement into Jace's life. Not that he necessarily wanted that excitement, of course -- he had gotten into his line of work because he wanted to help people, not because he liked chaos and, well, fire. What it meant, though, was that there were days when he had tasks that weren't necessarily firefighting, like standing around at Ravensworth Manor, making sure no one injured themselves as they started work on restoring the old home. It wasn't exactly riveting work, but it beat sitting at the firehouse all day, so he wasn't about to complain. Besides, he had been rather desperate as of late looking for things to distract himself with. Ever since his little water discovery a few weeks prior, he had been unable to think about much else. It was the sort of thing that shouldn't be possible, but when it was almost immediately paired with nightly dreams about Percy Jackson, a demigod that felt more and more like him with every passing memory... it was hard to deny. He knew about the dreams that everyone else had in town. Why would he be any exception? He may have been born in a completely different country than where Dunhaven was, but that didn't mean much. Judging by talk on the town's network, there were people who had been around for less time than him that were having the same dreams. It had only been a matter of time. Doing a circle around the exterior of the manor, Jace reached the front and saw a delightfully orange car sitting there. He didn't have to look harder to know who the owner was. He was pretty sure there wasn't a person in town that couldn't recognize Cerys Ravensworth's car. But, there she was, leaning against the hood with her phone in hand, staring up at the house. He hesitated. Though it had been years ago now, he remembered standing in front of the burned remains of his childhood home. He only knew what he'd heard through the grapevine as to what had happened at the Ravensworth's home and he couldn't compare his tragedy to Cerys's in any way, but he felt like he might have known where her head might have been at. She looked calm enough, but it still couldn't have been easy." And so, despite that he figured Jace Atwater was probably the last person she wanted to see, he nudged his sunglasses a bit further up his nose and approached the car. "Hey," he greeted, that accent of his that marked him as undeniably Not From Around Here hanging onto his words for dear life. "You all right?" Pulled suddenly from her thoughts of better things, Cerys started and let a hand fall to the hood to steady herself. You’re fine, Cerys. Be fine, she silently told herself as she conjured what she called her easy smile, the one she used on wealthy donors, politicians, and old families. “Of course,” she replied, and if his accent was definitively Not From Around Here, her’s was unmistakably Old Virginia Money. It couldn’t be helped. She’d spent too many years cultivating it in circles she was expected to run in to change it now. “I was just...checking on a pair of shoes I wanted at this darling boutique in DC.” Cerys lifted her phone, the screen now switched to black, as evidence that she was doing something completely normal instead of quietly unraveling outside of a ruined house she hadn’t been this close to in years. “Are you here helping with the renovations?” Cerys asked, finally letting herself process and recognize exactly who was standing in front of her. Jace Atwater was the last person she’d expected to see at her old home and her stomach did that familiar flop it had done each time she’d run into him however long ago. She chose to assume it had everything to do with how easily he could accomplish annoying her like so few people were able to do. She didn’t have it in her to turn on the Annoyed setting right now, though, because she only had it in her to wear one fake face. “I was kind of hoping I could get in, pick up the boxes they called about, and be done quickly.” And then, not wanting him to assume her hurriedness had anything to do with how not okay she actually was, she added, “For shoes.” "Kinda," Jace replied, glancing back at the house. "I'm just sort of making sure people don't get hurt and moving things when people ask me to." He glanced down at Cerys's phone when she offered it as an explanation for why she had been looking so contemplative. Unsure if he believed her, he also didn't feel like he was in a position to challenge the claim. He was pretty certain that he was an annoyance to Cerys more often than not, so that probably meant it wasn't within his rights to give her a hard time over a flimsy excuse. "Shoes are good, though." At least, he figured they must have been, if they'd caught her attention. He owned the bare minimum of shoes and tended to wear them out until they were falling off his feet, though, so he couldn't claim to be any kind of expert. (And then, a second later, he internally cringed. Shoes are good. He could do better than that.) “Oh,” Cerys replied. That made sense, she thought. After all, she’d known that there would be people here maintaining safety protocols and there were few in Dunhaven better suited for that task than its firefighters. “Right, good,” she continued, distracted now as she caught two people moving what looked like a burned table from the front door out to a pile of other destroyed objects that hadn’t been touched after the fire. “We wouldn’t want anyone to die here.” The offhanded, distract remark caught even herself off guard and, eyes wide, she glanced up at Jace whose expression she couldn’t read beneath his sunglasses. “That wasn’t-- I didn’t mean that.” Truth be told, she probably had meant it, and she may have even been able to say it to Mo or Hannah who would have understand why she’d said it, and where the words had come from. Jace didn’t know her, though, and she should have been more careful. She couldn’t let people who didn’t know her have any reason to think she didn’t respect her legacy. She sniffed once, dropping her phone in her pocket before wiping her palms down the sides of her slacks which were probably more suited for afternoon tea with the historical society than retrieving boxes that had been recovered. She looked away, wanting to hide the way she had to take a deep breathe and recover from her folly. “Do you know if they brought the boxes I’m meant to pick up out here?” The inappropriateness of the comment didn't actually strike Jace until Cerys reacted to it. As someone quite skilled in the art of putting one's foot where one's mouth is, he could almost feel the cringe rolling off of her and he felt a need to let herself know that it was all right. He didn't know if she'd really feel any comfort in his telling her that it was the sort of comment that he would have probably said himself, though. Instead, he decided that not addressing it at all was probably the best course of action. If it was him, he'd probably just want everyone involved to forget and he didn't want to make her feel worse -- especially not about that. Jace looked back at the house, as though expecting there to be a pile of boxes with a sign that pointed it out as being Cerys Ravensworth's belongings. There wasn't. He also definitely had no idea if someone had them set aside somewhere or who had contacted her in the first place. For some reason he wished that he did, so he could actually help her. "I'm not sure," he admitted, turning to look back at Cerys over the top of his sunglasses. "I could go and check for you, if you wanted? Do you know who called about them?" Nodding, Cerys said, “It was Janet.” Of course, Janet had also said that she wasn’t going to be onsite when Cerys arrived, so that wasn’t going to be incredibly helpful. Scanning the yard that expanded out on either side of the house, she saw piles of trash, and piles of supplies for the renovations, but nothing that looked like what Janet had asked her to pick up. With a sigh, she dug her nails into her palms to distract from what she was about to do and asked, “Could you navigate me inside so that I don’t catch any unstable flooring, or stairs? I can see if they’re in there.” Keeping his gaze on Cerys for another few seconds from over the top of his sunglasses, Jace nodded and then nudged the sunglasses back up his nose. "Sure," he agreed. He had no idea who Janet was, though he knew in that moment that he'd have asked every person in the manor for her. He didn't know why. He didn't want to know why, really. Starting to turn, as if to lead her to the manor, he paused and looked back to Cerys. He thought again to when he was fifteen-years-old and made his mother let him help go through the remains of their home to pick through and find any belongings that had survived the fire. It hadn't felt daunting up until their car pulled into the driveway, then suddenly it felt impossible. He wished he could be anywhere else. The only thing that had gotten him up and out of the passenger seat of the car was his desire to be strong for his mother; if only he'd known what he would begin putting her through only a handful of weeks later. "Are you sure?" he asked, giving her the option. "I really don't mind asking around for you." Cerys wanted to be sure. She wanted to know that this tragedy that had happened so long ago couldn’t still affect her the way that it had the night that it had happened. She wanted to be strong enough to walk through that threshold and see what remained without her heart feeling like it might beat out of her chest. She didn’t want to show weakness, and she didn’t want to ask for help because she was the person who handled other people’s messes. But she wasn’t sure, and Cerys’ foot felt embedded in cement where she stood. Voice small, she replied, “Actually, if you really don’t mind, that would be...nice.” One day, she’d be able to face this place, she hoped. Or maybe even when it was restored to its original glory and its halls turned into both a memorial and a shrine, she’d see the ghost of the life that used to fill its rooms and not be able to face it. Today, though...today was too much too soon. "I really don't mind," Jace promised, giving her a quick flash of a smile to punctuate the words. "I'll be right back." At that, he turned on his heel and hurried back toward the house at a quick jog, not wanting to leave Cerys waiting too long. Given that he generally operated on trying to make whatever conversations they had as awkward or irritating as possible, just because he could be that kind of person when he wanted to be, this wasn't the most normal of behavior of him. But what was normal anymore, really? He could apparently move water. It healed him. Besides, no one should have to confront a physical reminder of their painful past if they weren't ready for it. Especially not something like this. It didn't take him very long to find Cerys's things. Janet was nowhere to be found, but there was someone else that knew what he was talking about. Everything stacked easily enough and wasn't too heavy for him to carry out in one load, watching his feet and stepping around random bits of rubble and marked weak spots on the floor. Someone held the door open for him and he walked back toward Cerys and her car, much slower than when he'd left her there, not wanting to drop anything or have it get damaged. "Does this look right?" he asked as he approached Cerys. Cerys used the distraction of checking the boxes to take her mind off of the dizzying feeling of being back here again. She counted them--three boxes--and that was exactly what Janet had asked her to pick up. It was the first of many trips, she knew, but this was a lot more than she’d had from her childhood in years. She had been the one who’d decided to close off Ravensworth Manor immediately following the fire and, though she’d been too young to really be trusted with big choices, she’d been listened to because of who she was and the legacy that she had suddenly and entirely inherited. Closing it off, though, had meant that she hadn’t retrieved much of anything from the home, opting instead to have started brand new in her new life with Jeb. She had no idea what she was going to find in these boxes, but she wasn’t ready to dig into them right here in front of her childhood home. “I think that’s everything they had ready for now,” She replied, moving to open passenger door of the Camaro and leaning the seat forward to try and stuff the boxes in the back. She had never looked like the type who could or would do heavy lifting, but she took each box from Jace with ease and puzzled them into the backseat. When she was done, she righted herself and offered him a grateful smile. Then, realizing that he probably deserved more than a smile in thanks even if there was no way to articulate just how much he had just done for her, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the cash she’d stuffed there for Sal’s so that she would have to go looking for wherever she’d tossed her wallet. She held the two neatly folded twenties toward him and said, letting her real voice overshadow the practiced one, “Thank you for your help.” Jace had been ready with a you're welcome to give Cerys in return -- but then she'd offered the money his way. He wasn't offended, not really; there were a lot worse things she could have done than tried to give him what ostensibly felt like a tip. But, he still couldn't help the laugh that left his mouth, shaking his head back and forth a couple of times. It just felt absurd to him. They had clearly come from two very different worlds. There might have been shared experiences, but the house he had grown up in back in Perth was nowhere near the size of the manor that they were restoring in front of them. That enough spoke of the difference in circumstances. Taking a step back, Jace waved one of his hands toward Cerys dismissively, before letting it and his other arm fold in front of his chest. "Keep the tip, Cerys. This one's on the house." You’re stupid about money, Gansey. It was Adam’s voice in her head, one she recognized so well from so many years of walking alongside her counterpart. Cerys would have thought that having a 360 degree view of Gansey and all of his strengths and weaknesses should have cured her of this same stupidity, but she supposed there were some aspects of their shared upbringing that couldn’t be unlearned. She blushed, the heat spreading up her neck as she repocketed the bills and looked away. Clearing her throat as the laugh escaped him, she nodded. “Of course, sorry. Thank you, though. I’ll be more prepared for the next round of boxes,” she said. He knew that he probably should have been more snarky with her, but he couldn't bring himself to do it, even after the money thing. Giving Cerys a hard time normally came easily to Jace for reasons he didn't entirely understand or want to examine too closely, but this didn't feel like the time for it. Not here, not in front of the hollowed out remains of her childhood. On the network or in passing at Sal's, sure. He could be an asshole then. Just not now. "You're welcome," Jace replied, giving a nod of acknowledgement. "Carrying boxes happens to be one of my more marketable skills, though, so if you're in need, just let me know if I'm here." As if Jace’s offer to help her in the future was the thing that brought Cerys back to reality, she suddenly actually noticed how different this interaction with him had been. She’d been so distracted by how she was feeling about being back here that she’d completely missed that he was not supposed to be someone who was kind to her. In fact, she kind of thrived on the fact that she had just cause to be a brat to him in a way she couldn’t be to anyone else. With everyone except for Jeb and her girls, she always had to be on and Jace had always seemed a willing outlet for her usually silent need to be off. “Why are you being nice to me?” she asked before she could think better of it. Jace had to fight the cringe that wanted to take over his face, just because the question was the sort that demanded an honest answer and he wasn't sure he was equipped to give one. Well, not that exactly. Being honest was something that Jace actually excelled at. It was being honest and tactful that he struggled with. His mouth had a bad habit of moving faster than his brain, leading to a lot of stumbling over words -- words that usually weren't the right ones in the first place. He didn't want to offend her, but he also didn't want to lie or pretend that this was business as usual. Both of them knew it wasn't. "I don't know," he said, shrugging one of his shoulders before lifting an arm to rub idly at the back of his neck. "I guess I just know from experience that being at a place like this isn't all that easy, so me being an ass probably wouldn't help matters much." Cerys let her gaze move back to Jace, her head tilting just slightly to the side, the hint of a crease on her brow. “I didn’t think the Dunhaven Fire Department came across places like this very often,” she said, not belittling the work they did do, but unable to deny that devastating fires were thankfully not an everyday occurrence in the small town. Jace let out a short and soft breath of a laugh, because she really wasn't wrong. They were the epitome of small town fire department that spent most of their time getting cats out of trees. Not that it was a bad thing, of course; it made for dull days, but he'd rather that than actual fires and potential tragedies. Rather than say any of that, though, Jace looked at Cerys over the top of his sunglasses. "I didn't always live in Dunhaven, you know." The furrow deepened. “You were a little young to be a firefighter elsewhere the first time I noticed you in Dunhaven, weren’t you?” "They were pretty lax about those kinds of things in Perth," Jace said on instinct, his defense mechanism of sarcasm immediately bubbling to the surface as it always did when he got close to talking about his life before coming to Dunhaven. It was better than when he first came to the small town, where he just caused trouble and stressed his mother out, but it was instinct. Taking a breath, Jace glanced once toward the house as though someone might rescue him from the conversation. No such luck. His hand dropped from where he'd been rubbing his neck so he could fold his arms in front of his chest again. "No, that's not -- I mean, obviously that's not the case. My mom, Ruby, and I moved to Dunhaven because of a house fire. The house was a total loss and my -- " He almost said it, almost admitted to losing his dad, but the words didn't come. "Anyway. I just remember going back to the house before we left and it wasn't easy for me. I assumed it's not easy for you either." That was new, something Cerys hadn’t known about Jace until just then. Then, again, she hadn’t made much of an effort to know who he was as a person outside of the semi-frequent battle of wits they got into that she, admittedly, usually instigated. Her automatic response was to tell him that she was sorry. That was everyone’s response to her when she’d lost her home. Everyone except Jeb, that is. He knew what no one else knew, that the last thing she’d wanted to hear was how sorry someone was who had even less control over the whole thing than she had. Instead, she moved to lean back against her car, her eyes traveling up the ghost of her childhood home, and said, “Most people tell you that they get what you’re going through, but they can’t because they’ve never experienced it before.” Craning her neck to the side, she caught Jace’s eye. “I would have been okay with you being one of those people, even if it’s unfortunately refreshing to hear it from someone who actually gets it.” Cerys let out a slow, heavy sigh, wrapping her arms around herself. “I wasn’t even sure I wanted them to renovate this place, you know? What’s really the point of restoring a thing when it doesn’t restore its heart and soul along with it?” She paused, pressing her lips together, then shook her head once. “Sorry, that’s not really the conversation you’re here for,” she said with a small smile that was more habit than sincere. “Thanks, again, for the help, and for keeping a lookout while they work on this place.” Her words rang more true for Jace than he'd ever imagined they might coming from Cerys Ravensworth. He remembered the well intentioned words from when his father had first died and they had lost everything, as well as the same words even now. It was hard sometimes to remember that people were only trying to help in the only way that they knew how; they were probably just as uncomfortable with the facts of his past as he was. It really was refreshing to talk to someone who actually understood. Their situations might have still been different, but they were similar enough that they could get it. "You don't have to apologize." His gaze lifted to the house, once again his mind picturing the house he had grown up in. Even though he'd given her an opportunity to exit the conversation, it seemed as though talking to someone with a shared experience was freeing. "Someone bought the land that our house was on and rebuilt. I haven't been back to Perth, but it's on Google Maps. It's like we didn't even live there." Jace shook his head once, then looked back at Cerys. "Anyway, don't worry about it. I'm happy to help." “Which do you think is worse? Building something entirely new in its place and essentially erasing that which came before it, or maintaining historical integrity and erasing its actual history in consequence?” Cerys asked. And, then, because she wasn’t cruel, she added, “It’s a trick question, by the way. They both suck. For us, anyway. So I guess the only right answer is whatever makes everyone who isn’t us happy.” "That sums it up pretty well, yeah," Jace agreed, breathing out a sigh. He couldn't imagine living in Perth and driving by the lot that had once held the house he grew up in, only to see the same neighbors and most of the same trees, but a completely different building. At the same time, he couldn't imagine it looking the same, but their not living in it, especially not without his father's presence. There was no winning for them. Not with this, at least. "I guess making other people happy is its own reward," he said idly, though his expression looked unconvinced. "Maybe it'll actually feel like one eventually." Jace wasn’t entirely wrong, though Cerys could at least admit to herself that she didn’t necessarily need to make these people renovating the manor happy. She had the people she want to keep happy, though. Hannah, Mo, Jeb--they mattered. Sometimes it was as simple as telling someone that no one else made key lime pie quite as good, and sometimes it was using a small fortune to make sure her best friend finished school against all odds. She would do anything to keep her people going and maybe it had a little to do with the fact that she could never risk losing them in any sense of the word. “Sometimes it feels like a reward,” she said, “but not always. You know what always does feel like a reward, though? Half-sausage, Half-avocado pizza from Sal’s.” A smile stretched across Jace's face, genuine and actually reaching his eyes, even if they were also hidden behind his sunglasses. "Now that's a topping combo I've never tried before. I can see how it might feel rewarding." Cerys turned toward Jace then, away from the house, a look on her face. “How have you never thought to try the CMH Special at Sal’s, Jace? You clearly need this pizza in your life as much as I do.” "Hey," Jace laughed, though he wasn't sure if it was because of the look or the sudden swing from a conversation that could be emotionally heavy to pizza. Either way, it wasn't like his earlier laugh of disbelief; this was genuine and good-natured. "I'm a double pepperoni, bacon, and extra cheese kind of guy. I stick to what I know. Though," he considered, raising one shoulder, "maybe you're right. I might need to venture outside of the box." “Okay, that sounds disgusting,” Cerys replied with her own laugh, her tone the lightest it had been since she’d pulled up, “but I’ll make you a deal. You order my pizza tonight, and I’ll order yours. And then I’ll let you know how it was as soon as I can extract myself from the greasy remains of my dignity.” Grinning, if only because he knew that was about as accurate description as could be for his favorite pizza, Jace nodded his agreement. "All right, deal," he said, then held out his hand for her to shake if she wanted, as though this really were an important deal they just struck. Without hesitation, Cerys slipped her hand into his and shook it. She was bred a businesswoman, after all, and striking deals were supposed to be easy for her. But for a businesswoman who’d shaken hands countless times, she’d never found herself so easily distracted by a handshake before. For a moment, she let herself notice how his hand enveloped hers, how the inevitable calluses that came from his line of work were rough against her palm. She imagined the pads of her fingers had to inevitably be slightly more perpetually stained with ink, though she tried to hide that fact in mixed company. And then she realized she ought to have reclaimed her hand already, that she shouldn’t be committing these little details of Jace Atwater to memory each time she could collect a new one, so she pulled it back, letting her arm fall to her side. “I guess I should be going, then,” she said. And because she couldn’t help but to give him even the semblance of a hard time, she added, “I’m going to need photographic evidence that you didn’t just let your dog eat the pizza, too.” Where Cerys was thinking that she ought to reclaim her hand, Jace found himself thinking exactly the same about himself. It was more difficult than he cared to admit, though. Her hands were small and slight in comparison to his, which seemed to have been born for hard labor -- or carrying boxes. The handshake had been meant as a joke, but it felt like less of one with each passing second. He had to fight the urge to turn her hand in his, to compare the sizes. He had fight the urge to just not let go. He did let go, though, and let himself be distracted by Cerys's words, because it was much more acceptable than being distracted by a very innocent touch. Jace took a step, winking at her over the top of his sunglasses before pushing them back up the bridge of his nose once more. "I expect the same in return or I'll assume one of your roommates ate it." Cerys snorted. “On second thought, I should order two.” And, with one last smile in his direction that she hoped didn’t betray where her mind had wandered to, Cerys went around to the driver’s side of her Camaro, turned the key in the ignition and let herself pretend, for a moment, that she’d only come here for that conversation. There were no boxes in her backseat, no house being rebuilt, no bad memories, just a silly pizza pact with a guy who simultaneously drove her crazy and looked unfairly good doing it. |