fandomhigh | Home Ec, Tuesday, Period 1

Someone had decorated the classroom. Possibly several someones.

Who were color blind.

"Yeah, I don't know," Eliot told the students when they arrived. "Just . . . try to make the best of it." He was sort of desperately wishing he had a belt sander handy to strip the orange off things, at least, but they had other things to do right now. And he wasn't teaching Shop this semester.

"Right. So today we're going to touch on the 'economics' side of class. I got the syllabus for this sucker straight from the school board and they, uh. Well. Let's just say I'm pretty sure this thing hasn't been updated since the '80s." He pulled a very distinctively shaped box out of the teacher's desk, popped it open, and started passing around checkbooks. "I'm guessin' most -- if not all -- of you guys have never actually seen one of these before. These are called checks. They were used as sort of formalized financial markers throughout the US and a lot of the rest of the Earth in the 20th century. They've been made almost completely obsolete thanks to smartphones, credit cards, and the internet, but -- sure. Let's all learn how to write checks."

He was rolling his eyes so hard, you guys. This was absurd.

Once everyone had their checkbooks, he went to the whiteboard and drew a rough diagram of the check on the board, numbering each blank and explaining what went in each one. "These suckers are really easy to counterfeit or use in fraud, by the way," he warned them. "If you put 'cash' in the 'who is this for' spot, anyone can use it to get paper money or coins out of your bank account. If you write a check and your account doesn't have enough funds in it to cover the expense, it'll 'bounce', meanin' the person you're payin' doesn't get their money and gets pissed, and the bank gets pissed, and when people get pissed about money it usually means at the very least they're gonna charge you a lot more for it."

At the most? Well. Eliot had maybe been sent out to 'retrieve' in retaliation for a bounced check or two in his time. It wasn't pretty.

"So the basic idea for this class is: You each get the same amount of imaginary money in your imaginary bank account, about 10 thousand -- they ain't dollars, but whatever -- which you'll spend using your super unofficial checks. Then when we're doin' lessons throughout the rest of the semester, you're gonna 'pay' for your supplies using that imaginary money. I dunno, if you want to use, like, organic flour when we're makin' bread, that'll cost more -- whatever the hell you wanna call 'em, points, simoleons, Fandom-bucks, whatever -- than just the regular old all-purpose flour. Maybe you really wanna use the fancy flour, but then next week we're gonna do sewing and you want to get the fancy fabric, too. You're gonna have to keep an eye on your own 'account' and decide what you'd rather spend more money on. Ya follow?"

This was far too complicated for a Fandom class. Seriously.

"If you run out of money b'fore the end of the semester I'm probably supposed to start teachin' you about credit or something and you can learn an important lesson about how to apply for a loan and slowly ruin your life, but -- fuck it. Just -- I ain't gonna track whether or not your checks are bouncin' or not." He was not going to track whether or not they actually used their checks or not, let's be real. "Bullshit a breakdown of what you spent where at the end of the semester and if it even kinda makes sense I'll give you a pass on the economics side of things."

This is what happened when budgeting was being taught by a professional thief.

"For today, practice writin' and endorsin' checks. Go nuts and pay your friends a billion fan-bucks each. Write somethin' dirty on the 'For' line. Practice signing your roommate's name. Y'all're probably either gonna pay for things with PayPal or gold bullion around here, anyway. If your world uses somethin' real interesting for currency, like -- actual shells or something, or -- hey -- if you use an actual barter system, come on over and tell me about it. Money in my world's basically a giant con, so it'll be nice to hear about something that might actually work."

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"Ridicule an' exile," Eliot said thoughtfully. "Those ain't exactly light punishments." They were typically very effective ones, though. "Sounds like a very tight-knit group." With very clear parallels to certain groups from Eliot's world, even if all the terms used had changed. "That hagglin' skill. I'm guessin' y'all ain't too concerned about makin' sure any of these gadje end up gettin' a fair shake on their end of the deals you're strikin' up, are ya."

None of that was scathing or even particular critical. If anything, Eliot was curious and amused.

Again, the joys of having a professional thief for a teacher.

As if, say, certain cultures had been

"We have to be," Hyacinthe said, ignoring the fact that he barely counted and didn't have a kumpania of his own. "We're the Travellers. We have no set homeland to call our own. We have only one another, so 'tis important to be able to trust even a strange Tsingani you meet."

Because, in all likelihood, it would be him and you against everyone else.

He grinned at Eliot's last question. "We're just teaching them to be savvy customers. 'Tisn't our fault their apron strings were cut before they learned. Or that they keep not learning."

Which was a much better thing to say than by pointing out how many ways the gadje cheated them. Their cheating was just more systemic, a Cruithne word Hyacinthe didn't know.

"Hell, goin' easy on 'em would be wrong," Eliot agreed with a faint smirk. "Man, you throw computer terms in there and you'd sound almost exactly like Hardison talkin' a m -- job."

Alright, so he clearly wasn't teaching these kids any morals with regards to money. That didn't mean he was going to use outright con artist terms like 'mark' in front of the impressionable youngin's.

Where the squirrels might report him, anyway.

~~It's almost like the mun has a type! <3~~

Hyacinthe would laugh at being thought of as an 'impressionable youngling.' He'd known what marks were since he was a child, though he tended towards light thievery than any actual conning.

"Hardison?" he asked. "Your partner, yes? He is--"

And then Hyacinthe's voice changed, going hollow with the dromonde. His head tilted up, black gaze meeting Eliot's, blurred and strange with sight. "The lost and lonely bird waits at the end of the Causeway, but she will not wait for long."

Of course he'd laugh. Impressionable yougin's always did.

Eliot started back when the dromonde started, then leaned forward, ready to catch Hyacinthe if she so much as swayed. "Jesus, kid. You alright?"

A moment or so later, Hyacinthe blinked and his eyes filled with personality again, like pouring into a vessel that had been emptied. "I...I am fine," he said softly. "I just hadn't expected that."

He flashed a smile, though it was more by rote than because he felt like smiling. "By rights, I ought to have demanded you cross my palm with silver," he said, his voice betraying a slight tremor.

"Sit down," Eliot ordered. "What was that, some sort of seizure?"

Yeah, he could guess what Hyacinthe meant by that line about silver. And he knew in this town he couldn't just dismiss the idea the way he might back home.

They had still just been talking about cons.

Hyacinthe promised to never tell Parker that he was speaking to her dead brother.

"A seizure?" Hyacinthe sat while he ran that word against his Cruithne vocabulary. "You mean like a fit? No, 'twas the dromonde, the ability to part the veils of the what-might-be. Or that-which-was, depending on the strength of the gift."

Eliot was very sorry your legitimate psychic gift sounded so much like someone setting mark to fleece them of all their money, Hyacinthe.

"You were tellin' the future," he said. ". . . About birds."

As well you should be, Eliot. At the very least, Hyacinthe would have set something up to get money out of the deal. This wasn't amateur hour, c'mon now.

"Yes?" he said, helplessly shrugging. "'Tis weird--the dromonde is rarely ever cryptic. It might not always make sense and it might even be midleading, but 'tis never wrong and rarely cryptic."

Which meant there was a bird out on the Causeway that was going to fly away soon. And that was important. Yes.

Hey now, the first taste was always free. That was how you roped them in.

"Yeah, that sounded damned cryptic to me. That happen to you in mid-sentence a lot?"

"Hardly," Hyacinthe said, still looking more confused than aught else. "When I use it, yes, and sometimes in dreams, but almost never without just cause. My mother--it happens to her, sometimes, but her use of the dromonde is unparalleled. Kumpai would travel to leagues to speak with her, even with seeresses of their own."

"Just cause," Eliot said. He was trying really hard not to just out right roll his eyes at you Hyacinthe. He really was. "Your -- power or whatever decided it was super important to talk about a lonely bird on the causeway because -- we were talkin' about connin' folks?"

Interpretation of for-real psychic powers was so far outside Eliot's realm of expertise it was almost funny.

You were going to owe him such an apology, Eliot.

Hyacinthe drew himself up, black eyes growing darker with anger. "There is very little I do not mock in this world, but the dromonde is one of them. I use it to make coin, as any Tsingani with a skill would do, but it is not a con."

Eliot raised his hands. If the kid tried to get money out of him later, then he'd be ready, but for the time being, it wouldn't actually hurt to humor him.

Yes, he was going to owe a major apology later. Definitely.

"Alright, sorry. I'm sure it'll make sense later."

He was sure of no such thing.

Pfft, there were plenty of people to fleece in Baltimore if Hyacinthe wanted easy cash. He knew better than to con where he ate.

"Indeed," he said, voice cool. "I look forward to hearing what it means."

And maybe saying I told you so a few hundred times. Or, at least, thinking it very loudly.

Home Ec, Tuesday, Period 1

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