Summary: How Skip went from being that scared kid in detention to Leon Bronstein's right-hand man.

More.

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.

Making the costume turned out to be the easy part. He found the breastplate in a Henry VIII costume, which was depressing enough that he tried not to think about it. The rest was scrounged from his mother's kitchen. Sure, the epaulettes and helmet were very clearly pasta strainers, but he'd never intended it to look perfect.

"Let me guess, you're going as a roast pan full of ham," his older brother had said, sticking his head out his bedroom door as Skip clanked out the front door on his way to open up the ticket booth.

Skip rolled his eyes. "You're an ass, Josh." Hadn't anybody around here read the book?

When Skip arrived, the armor already hot and uncomfortable, he found Caroline and Tony hanging up decorations while Dwight griped. None of them had changed into their costumes yet, and Leon was nowhere to be seen. Caroline tossed a roll of tickets at him. "Skip! Ya look hot."

Somehow he managed to catch it in midair. "Oh, yeah, the helmet was a mistake - " Wait, what?

"Leon says he wants you to start selling tickets ASAP."

Skip blinked. Just Caroline being Caroline. She was one of those pretty girls who seemed to get a kick out of flirting shamelessly with the losers. Skip still hadn't figured out whether she was being cruel or kind. "Where is Leon, anyway?"

"Practising his unionization speech," said Tony, who was taping up a monochrome portrait of Lenin that was taller than he was. "Car, are you still down to do my eyeliner?"

"I'm going to go sell tickets and not ask."

"Wise man."

Skip stood at the ticket booth in the boiling sun for a good ten minutes of nothing. Nobody was going to come, for the simple, clear reason that Leon was crazy. And if they did come, they would be in jeans and hoodies like normal human beings and it would be, 'Hey, why's the fat kid wearing a suit of armor?' and he would never hear the end of it. The heat and the sun were killing him. And God, worst of all, Dwight had been right. This was stupid. Leon was crazy and Skip was an idiot for getting swept up in it. His only consolation, he thought, tugging at the neck strap of the ridiculous helmet, was that if he was working tickets and concessions all night he wouldn't have to actually try to dance.

And then the mob arrived.

It took Skip a good twenty seconds to close his mouth, and another twenty to pick up the tickets – which had dropped from his lifeless fingers – so he could actually start selling them. Holy shit. This wasn't Montreal West High School; these weren't even kids. It was a mob of lunatics with that special you-better-fucking-believe-it brand of Leon Bronstein craziness. There, Malcolm X – at least two Gandhis – the Buddha – the Black Panthers – Was that René Levesque? He could barely think straight enough to count their change.

Eventually Caroline came out and saved him, almost unrecognizable in a bleach-blonde wig and sparkly silver dress. When he got back inside he found Leon collecting signatures, and for a moment he was amazed that he looked the same as ever. He had expected Leon to take his costume to the same extremes he took the rest of his life – and then it clicked. Leon didn't need a costume. He was the real thing. Skip couldn't conceal a smile.

"Leon? Yeah, uh, a girl dressed as Ayn Rand just told me that you threw her out."

Eye-rolls all around. Dwight, you already ruin everything without defending Ayn Rand. For a moment Leon was speechless. "And?"

"Why?"

"This is a fascist-free zone, Dwight. Maybe you should leave as well."

"Throw another fuckin' kid out, Leon… and you are next." Dwight made a cross with his fingers. Skip wondered if he had any clue why he was doing it.

Tony was playing peacekeeper for the day. "Easy, Dwight, okay? Ayn stuck back in, she's in the gym."

Skip decided he'd had enough of Dwight shitting all over Leon. This whole thing was Leon's idea, and Dwight hadn't done more for it than selling a few packs of snickers. "Yeah, Dwight, go back to the candy stand."

"What'd you say? Skippy? You wanna fuckin' DIE?"

Skip ducked warily behind the length of his tin foil lance. Dwight was almost certainly full of shit, but he really didn't want to risk it.

Oh, Dwight. His douchebaggery is so unrepentant. It's almost Dickensian.