noel "(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻" hu. (gongfu) wrote in fableless, @ 2016-07-09 21:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! log/thread, gideon choi, noel hu |
WHO: Gideon Choi and Noel Hu
WHEN: 2010
WHERE: Noel's place
SUMMARY: That one time Gideon recruited Noel into the Hand of Grimm~ (BINGO PROMPT: First Recruit)
STATUS: Complete
So how was one expected to recruit another into a super-secret (and at the moment, super-small, hence the recruitment) sort of group? Ask them to dinner, like you’re going for a proposal of another sort entirely? Suggest mysteriously that you meet somewhere private and make your target wonder all day if you’re plotting murder? Call from a phone booth across the city? There didn’t seem to be an opportune moment, and Gideon was not fond of waiting to do anything, so instead one evening after he knew Noel was finished with classes, he showed up at her door. They were friends, in any case. She probably wouldn’t get any more annoyed with him as she did on a daily basis. Noel had contemplated ignoring the doorbell when it rang. First of all, what kind of asshole door salesman showed up at her place on a weekday evening, and what kind of asshole still did door-to-door sales? She was in no such hurry to put down her Joan Didion book for … whomever this was. However, the ringing still persisted even after Noel had managed to finish her chapter. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered aloud to nobody in particular. “This better be Girl Scout cookies.” Swinging open the door, Noel held an unflinching stare, even as she found herself face-to-face with Gideon. “Hey,” he said, when she opened the door, glad to see his gamble’s first step, at least, had paid off. “Am I interrupting? A booty call, perhaps? Well, it’s a little early for that. Netflix marathon?” Gideon raised his brows at Noel, standing relaxed on her doorstep. “If you’re asking whether you’re interrupting, you may as well be answering your own question,” Noel commented dryly. Her direct stare at Gideon was not without its fair share of bemusement, though she didn’t know what prompted him to show up at her place. “So … did someone die?” “Not that I know of,” he quipped in return, the picture of ease, like he was doing nothing out of the ordinary. “I’ve got a proposal for you, of sorts. And no, it couldn’t wait until tomorrow. Can I come in? It’s chilly out here.” It was a perfectly warm summer evening, but either way he was indoors, making his comment even more absurd, and Gideon smiled innocently at his coworker. As innocently as he could manage, after all. He probably wasn’t helping his case by acting suspicious, but he couldn’t really help himself. Noel shook her head and rolled her eyes as she moved away from the doorframe to let Gideon in. “Weirdo,” she muttered, as she shut the door behind them. “A proposal, huh? Gimme the elevator pitch.” She stared down at her wrist, at the watch that she decidedly was not wearing, in the same brusque way she often did whenever she was teaching a class. “What, you just invited me in, now you want to get rid of me?” Gideon wandered into her home; had he ever been here before? He didn’t think so. It wasn’t far off from what he had imagined, or what he would have imagined, if he’d thought about it. Modern, spacious, clean. More space than his own place. “Aren’t you going to offer me anything? A snack? Tea? Wine?” Well, now that’s all he was thinking about, teasing notwithstanding. Still, he shot her a curious look, already anticipating her reaction. “So, lots of talk about registration lately, huh? Didn’t a princess just make herself known or something? I don’t know, my students are really excited about it, though.” Noel’s reaction turned incredulous. “You showed up to my place uninvited, and you expect me to give you my tea. I’m not entertaining your British imperialist bullshit right now.” That, however, did not stop her from walking toward the kitchen, as if to pour out two glasses from the bottle of wine in her fridge … until she deliberately leaned against the kitchen counter instead. “Why are your kids excited?” A suspicious crease deepened near her browline. “Do they just stalk the registration records in hopes that somebody will reveal themselves?” Gideon shrugged. “Beats me. They want her at their party or something. There’s gossip blogs on the internet, that sort of thing; it’s almost taken like a television show these days.” “Jesus Christ,” Noel shook her head. “People are not a fucking novelty. You’d think we were playing a real life game of Guess Who.” Of course she knew about the recent outing, but she wanted fuck-all to do with anything involving the words public registration. Her identity was not a property of the government. Honestly, he suddenly realized he didn’t know why he was being coy; he wouldn’t be here, after all, if he hadn’t been sure beyond a shadow of the doubt what Noel’s beliefs were, if she hadn’t already been vetted and approved by his fellow Hand of Grimm members. So he grinned at her, and said, “Why are you being so mean? Where’s my guest offering? You hold out on me, I’m going to hold out on you, you know.” “Why are you so self-victimizing?” The deadpan answer escaped Noel, as she arched an eyebrow at him. “I already gave you shelter from the arctic chill of California.” “I came all the way here to tell you about this awesome thing,” he sighed in response. “And I don’t even get offered the couch? I’m going to tell everyone at work. How about this: I make my proposal, you accept, and then we sit down and have some wine and bitch about the stupid things our students said today. I think that sounds like a fine deal, and a fine evening.” Gideon crossed his arms, leaned against the counter across her, and raised a brow at her expectantly. “Cry me a river and go sit on the couch, Gideon.” While she wasn’t going to say no to wine and bitching (she was already going through her fridge for a Riesling), she wouldn’t have been Noel unless she added a stipulation of her own. “I’m not blindly accepting anything. That’s like me writing you a blank check. If I say yes --” She held up a Gewurtzraminer and a Riesling bottle for Gideon to take his pick. “-- your proposal is going to be something absurd and stupid, like making my students deliver you pizza every day or me signing all my emails with ‘Gideon is awesome.’.” “Hey! That hurts! I wouldn’t—” he was legitimately indignant for a second, ready with his defense, until he thought about it for a second longer. “—well, all right, fair enough.” He had to admit that didn’t sound too horribly out of character. He picked the Gewurtzraminer. Literally, in fact, made to pick it out of her hand. “Great. Shall we, then?” Gideon grabbed a couple of her glasses, a little presumptuously, and made a beeline for the couch. “As I was saying, registration,” he called back over his shoulder, “sort of a problem, isn’t it? Pressure coming from all directions. Minors being signed up by their parents. More pressure from society, once they’re registered. To conform, maybe, to a life already lived and done with, whether they like it or not.” Having found the couch, he made himself comfortable, crossing his legs and spreading his arms along its back. “So Marty, our favorite ever-rebel, embracer-of-underdogs-everywhere Marty, had an idea. For an organization. To help people who might find themselves in a pickle of one kind or another. You see where this is going?” Noel held a slight grimace as Gideon grabbed her wine glasses, as if she were a child being forced to go grocery shopping with their parents. It wasn’t etiquette that was on her mind, but the element of surprise that itched at her. Thank god Gideon finally got to the fucking point, as she took a hearty swig of the wine to fully digest everything he just said. “Yes, I dislike the fundamental idea of registration and its rigid model, we know this.” “And glad as I am that you and Marty have found a worthy cause and that you have selected me for your sales pitch,” said Noel flatly. “I am not in a pickle, and will not be requiring his services -- or yours -- any time soon.” She liked Marty -- she found him a worthy opponent and somebody with admirable political ideals -- but she did not consider being “unqualified” for fencing lessons as a truly awful situation. Moreover, she didn’t need another friend offering her help. In response, Gideon just rolled his eyes. “Not what I meant at all, Noel. Unless you’re playing me right now with your whole humble shtick, in which case cut it out.” Cutting words, perhaps, but that was just how Gideon was, and how he and Noel were together. “We’re not looking to help you. We’re looking for you to help us. By joining the little pet project so far known as the Hand of Grimm.” A pregnant pause fell upon Noel. On one hand, being called out for her so-called modesty was generally irksome, but it would have been even more irksome if that had been an offer of help. Being asked to join, though? She let out a snort. "Thanks but no thanks. I'll leave you and Marty to deal with your boys' club." “What, seriously?” Gideon frowned at her. “It’s not a — well, perhaps a bit. But you know what? It wouldn’t be a boys’ club if you joined.” Perhaps, having — clearly presumptuously — taken her acceptance for granted, he hadn’t explained himself well. While he took a moment to think Gideon took a long drink out of his glass of wine, and then sat it down on the coffee table so he could lean forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together. “Look, we may be still only in our first year, but there is potential to do real good with this,” he said. “There’s real danger here, if it becomes more and more commonplace for people’s Tales to be known. People getting outed for their histories or their powers without their consent. What else is there to do, sit around and take it?” Noel’s jaw visibly clenched, but it wasn’t for lack of indecision. Her answer (“No, you don’t sit around and take it, you do something.”) was already sitting on the tip of her tongue, but she was never one to blindly accept anything at face value, even if she did trust both Gideon and Marty. “Well, what are you doing, Gideon? Suppose my tale is that of a villain -- I’m talking the Big Bad Wolf or Gothel -- somebody notorious for wreaking havoc in their tale -- and I am outed and forced to register, which leaves me with little job prospects, many windows of opportunity closed on me, and possible license for discrimination. If I call upon the Hand of Grimm, then what?” Both her tone and the given amount of silence that followed were pointed, before she began with her next question. “Or suppose I have the power to read minds, to augment powers, to teleport -- all things the government finds useful, in fact -- so useful, that were I to register, I would likely be subjected to a career of aiding the government for their own means, with little say in what I can do with my life. Hardly another ideal way to go in this lifetime. Where does the Hand of Grimm fit?” “As a web of connections, at the very least,” Gideon countered. “Something that people can know of. Spread the word that they need help, and it gets to one of us. Through one of us it comes to the others, through us to the people we know. Someone knows someone who gets Gothel a job. Someone else gets the person with the useful powers out of town, or is available to consult in case they begin to be blackmailed. “It’s a fair enough point that there’s only so much we can do without breaking the law — at least too egregiously, since it’s not like we have very solid histories with regard to following it,” he continued. “But there are things we can do. There are ways we can help. And this way those people won’t be alone as they deal with these things.” “So something akin to a thinktank, but on a more grassroots level,” Noel tried her best to summarize aloud. She looked at Gideon for confirmation. Thinktanks and consultancies were nothing new for her; they practically formed most of her resume. Granted, the ones she had worked for had a greater degree of legitimacy, but she could see where this line of conversation was headed. “So the Hand of Grimm, as far as I can tell, provides solutions for at-risk people affected by … Tale discrimination? The threat of compulsory registration? What kind of solutions? Reactive ones, where people come to you guys for help, you solve their problem, case closed, next problem? Anything proactive or long-term? Lobbying against laws that would make registration mandatory?” “I’m not so sure we can lobby effectively and remain anonymous,” Gideon replied, relaxing again, and with that picking up his glass of wine once more. Of course, he thought now that the initial indignation had faded, of course Noel would challenge him, of course this would not be as easy as he had expected; he had been a fool to expect such. This was part of why they needed her, after all. The group was in its infancy and some of these questions had yet to be answered, so Gideon thought aloud as he responded. “Long-term will have to be in the picture. Otherwise we’re just a band-aid. Helping people who come to us is going to be a mandatory part of what we do, but we may as well do nothing at all if we don’t work toward making change in this town come around on a grander scale.” “Fair. So there’s no long-term plan yet.” Though Gideon’s answer seemed vague to Noel, she had to give him credit for being honest about the group’s limitations and scope. One of her pet peeves as a professor was when students made self-aggrandized promises in their business case studies or overextended their capabilities. Leaning back into the comfort of the couch, she continued: “Then, let’s say if your group is successful and helps enact the change it wants to enact, what is Woodsbridge going to look like in five, or let’s say, ten years?” “Legislation to prevent discrimination on account of one’s Tale,” he responded immediately, “in the workplace and otherwise. Registration goes back into the hole whence it came. The latter probably more of a priority at first. The softer goals, the shifting of public opinion, that’ll be harder to bring about in only ten years. There will still be prejudice against villains and witches, and there will still be pressure to conform to stories some of us barely remember. But that pressure shouldn’t come from the government.” "Systemic discrimination isn't going to disappear overnight. But preventative legislation and abolishing mandatory registration -- those are steps in the right direction," Noel acknowledged. "But we can continue this discussion when I show up to your next group meeting." She paused to allow Gideon to take that piece of information in. "That said, I'm fairly sure you did not just pull this Hand of Grimm out of your ass, you're at least realistic about the scope of your group and its capabilities, and your goals, while lofty, are admirable.” Noel continued her assessment, with the same professorly tone that she reserved for classroom critiques. “And considering the progress we've made on this wine bottle, I'm rather impressed.” “So, tell you what,” she took her penultimate sip of wine. “Here’s my proposal: try before I buy. I attend your meeting -- or however you and Marty and the others meet up. If this does turn out to be a complete farce, I will be amazed, but mostly really fucking angry. Now,” she looked at him expectantly. “If it turns out to be similar to the concept that I had to interrogate out of you in the past few minutes, then--” she paused, just in case she had any last thoughts to air out. “--I’m in.” The thinking-frown from before transformed immediately into a satisfied smile. Gideon relaxed into the couch more fully and lifted his glass to his lips. “If I was going to play a trick on you,” as if it would have been anyone but him leading the effort if such a thing were actually to happen, “it would be a lot more fun-sounding than this. And it’s not your birthday, anyway. But I am glad to hear that. Our next meeting should be soon; we can figure out a time that works for us all now that you’re in the loop.” He finished off his glass, and then leaned in to pick up the bottle. “Now, I’ve been doing all the talking, not that that’s very unusual. So: any schadenfreude to be enjoyed from stories about your students lately?” “I get the sharing stick, now?” Noel rolled her eyes fondly. “Well, I did have one student today who tried to pass off a garbage Excel spreadsheet as a corrupted Word document, as if I didn’t know that trick already.” Already her voice had dropped its guardedness, as she happily finished off the dregs of her wine glass. “Or should I say ex-student?” “Tell me you skewered them,” Gideon smiled. “That’ll make me happy.” After refilling his own glass, he held the bottle of wine out as an offer to refill hers as well, raising a brow expectantly. “Oh, come on, that’s a given,” Noel smirked. “Besides, I wouldn’t have let them go without grilling them either, like a real kebab.” Tipping her glass toward the bottle of wine to receive a new pour, she flashed a knowing smile at Gideon. “Your turn.” They were only just scratching the surface. |