Summary: How Skip went from being that scared kid in detention to Leon Bronstein's right-hand man.
Yes, I just wrote a fic about one of the most ignored characters in one of the least well-known films out there. I realize what a hipster that makes me. But hey, give Jesse Camacho some love.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Trotsky or any of its characters. I'm just trying to change the world in my own tiny way.
"I am the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky. And if you give Skip or any other student another unjustifiable detention you and I are going to have a serious problem, miss – ah – I'm sorry, what was your name?"
It hadn't ended prettily. Skip wasn't a bad kid. He'd never asked for any of this; he'd never asked to be noticed at all. Ms. Davis had only started on him in the first place because he was an easy target, the kind of sad-sack boy who never raised a fuss no matter what you threw at him because he was used to worse. After his old school, all he'd wanted from high school was to be left alone, and so far not even that was working.
Cue Leon Bronstein. As if a fiery-eyed psychopathic guardian angel who thought he was a dead Russian revolutionary was just what Skip's life had been missing. It had never occurred to him that having somebody stand up for him could actually make things worse. Now Ms. Davis was taking every possible opportunity to humiliate him – Do try to keep the rest of your uniform clean, young man, didn't we have to have it ordered specially in your size? - And Berkhov seemed to think he was in on Leon's game.
But it was hard not to admire him for having the balls to talk to Ms. Davis like that. To do what everyone there wanted to do, when fear kept them nodding and chewing their fingernails and saying Yes, Ms. Davis, sorry Ms. Davis, it won't happen again. Not just that, to do it with such calm and nonchalance that for a moment the bitch was dumbstruck, as if Leon really had in him a seed of Marxist grandeur that even she could see.
"Skip! Just the man I wanted to see." The next morning, before classes. Skip's face fell. He turned slowly from his locker, afraid of what would happen if he did, afraid of what Leon would do if he didn't.
Leon, all crooked smile and insane glinting eyes, held up two cups of coffee and extended one for Skip to take. "Apologies for all the brouhaha yesterday. I wish there was a way I could have done it without you getting sent to Berkhov, though you handled that like a champion."
"…Thanks?" Skip took the coffee and stared at him like it might bite. He didn't normally drink coffee.
"And I do intend to keep my word, so if the fascists give you any trouble…"
He wanted to glare and tell Leon how much worse she'd gotten. It was all Leon's fault anyway. But he couldn't. "Um. Okay."
Leon put a hand on Skip's shoulder. "Thank you for telling Berkhov you didn't know me, by the way; that did everything for my credibility."
"Well, it's… true..." He bit his lip. "Do you really think you're Trotsky? Or was that just something you said to freak Davis out?" He couldn't help a small smile at the memory of the look on her face. "Because either way, it worked."
Leon looked delighted. His smile became conspiratorial. "Skip, there is never any reason to lie to authority. Speak truthfully and in a clear voice, knowing yourself to be morally beyond question, for no punishment can tarnish a just principle."
"Who said that?"
"Me." He giggled. "The second Trotsky, that is, not the first. Yes, I do believe it. I'm sure of it." And he sounded so certain that Skip almost believed it too.
"Listen, I know you have to get to class now, but I'd love it if you'd join us at the Student Union meeting after school. You're just the kind of guy we need."
"Ah…" He should have said no. He knew that. It couldn't be too hard to make up some excuse. But – something about it rang true, in a way that appealed to him. He'd spent years just taking all the shit that people heaped on him and suddenly that did not feel fair – he ought to be able to look Ms. Davis in the eye and tell her it wasn't. Leon clearly thought he could. The guy was ape-shit crazy insane, but when he looked at Skip he obviously didn't see a shy, friendless fat kid who was scared of everything that moved. "Um, alright."
And that was how it started. Leon Bronstein, it turned out, was like a new-formed sun, dragging everyone into the furnace of his ideology. Even guys like Dwight, who had always been able to make his life hell with a few words, turned into sputtering idiots with a raised eyebrow from Leon. Skip was finding it harder to be scared any more.
More to come soon enough.