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

Time for awkwardness!

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.

"Skip, this is my sister Sarah."

Leon Bronstein was insane.

"She doesn't know anybody here, so why don't you ask her to dance and talk to her and stuff?"

Skip had been painfully aware of the girl ever since she'd walked in; the culturally loaded costume, the unfamiliarity of her face, her intelligent bearing. Leon's sister. Leon's hot sister. And Leon had just more or less ordered him to dance with her. Skip gave Leon a surreptitious are-you-fucking-kidding-me look, but the intent expression in his eyes did not waver. And Skip was powerless. Before he knew it the words were already hanging awkwardly in the air between them.

"Do you… want to dance?"

Sarah hesitated. He'd expected that. What was Leon trying to pull – was this some strategic piece of manipulation, or an ill-advised attempt to be helpful, or had his tiff with Dwight left him in a bad enough mood that he just wanted to see Skip humiliated? But then Sarah nodded, as if she couldn't say no to Leon any more than Skip could.

He got her a drink, and she smiled. Despite all good sense a tiny particle of hope lodged itself in his throat. Right up until they got into the heart of the dancing and reality hit him like a brick. Every stiff, helpless attempt to move to the beat only reminded him how fucking fat he was – he didn't belong here. Least of all with Leon's sister.

Sarah didn't look a whole lot happier than he felt, glancing uneasily between him and the rest of the pulsating crowd as if she didn't know what she was supposed to be doing. He felt terrible for her. He knew better than most what it felt like to get shoved into something you hated, just because you were too nice to say no.

Then Caroline showed up to flirt drunkenly with him as if it were her mission in life to make Skip uncomfortable, taking the opportunity to terrify Sarah on the side. Normally he sort of liked Caroline, but right now he wanted to murder her. Couldn't she see he was in enough trouble without her 'help'?

When she finally left them alone, he gave Sarah an apologetic look, forgetting for a moment to keep his feet moving – that required constant concentration. "Sorry about her, she's crazy," he yelled, over the pounding bassline.

Sarah's lips thinned, and then she glanced over at him. She had stopped dancing too. He felt her eyes on him and half-heartedly started to move again.

"You… don't really like dancing, do you," said Sarah, with a crooked smile.

"Hate it," admitted Skip. It felt like taking a weight from his shoulders.

She gestured to the auditorium door. "Want to get out of here?"

"Well – I mean if you want to stay, I -"

"No, please, this kinda freaks me out."

He followed her mutely into the hallway – mercifully empty. Outside the auditorium, away from the crushing music, he finally felt like he could breathe again.

Sarah leaned against the wall, putting a hand to her head. "Is that what all public school dances are like?"

"Pretty much. Apart from the costumes." Skip tugged at the strap of his makeshift helmet. A band of sweat had formed underneath it. "You go to a private school?"

"Yes. So did Leon, but I don't think it really fit in with his ideology. Why would somebody spike the punch?"

"I am so sorry."

"It isn't your fault." She said it with a sad smile, and Skip knew she wasn't just talking about the punch. This was her way of letting him down gently. Why don't you ask her to dance and talk to her and stuff? Yeah, right, Leon.

"Don Quixote, eh?"

He looked over at Sarah in surprise. "Y-you're the first person to have gotten it."

"That's why I picked something obvious. The pasta strainers are a clever touch, though."

"You've read the book," said Skip.

She nodded. Again the crooked smile that wasn't entirely happy. "A long time ago. My dad read it to me."

"But… not to Leon."

"Leon and my dad don't see eye to eye."

Even if skip hadn't known about the factory and Leon's hunger strike, that wouldn't have surprised him. Of course Leon wouldn't get along with his dad – but Sarah was harder to figure out. Fondness for her father, but enough loyalty to Leon that she'd even been willing to dance with Skip. Torn between two worlds, maybe, like all sane human beings were.

"Let me guess, he totally misunderstood the point of the costume?"

Skip flicked a hand over his head. "Whoosh. Windmills." Then chuckled anxiously, hoping she knew what he meant.

But to his relief she giggled. "Oh. Oh. You, Skip, have a nasty streak."

"I- sorry?"

"Windmills. My brother. Oh, that is priceless."

Skip flushed. He had assumed his little joke – an obscure, cerebral one, the kind he never made out loud anymore because people looked at him funny – would have been beneath everyone's notice, if not too strange for anyone else to hit upon it in the first place. Just something he'd been thinking about, not long after meeting Leon Bronstein. Reinventing himself as Trotsky, trying to recapture a golden-age ideology, searching for villains and princesses to play-act in his fantasy… This communism business was really another kind of chivalry, wasn't it, with Leon as its puppy-dog-eyed Don Quixote? Ridiculous, and yet strangely compelling. "Well, uh, it… occurred to me. I. I didn't mean it cruelly or anything-"

Sarah held up her hands. "Hey, I think it's genius! I mean, Leon – he's my brother, and even more than that, I think he's right, I believe in him – but every so often I still take a look at him and think What the hell?"

"I knew you were sane," blurted Skip, with an idiot's grin.

"But you're here, helping him. Leon doesn't recruit cynics."

He wanted to answer her, even though he didn't know what to say – was he a cynic, really? Did it count if nobody would ever know you were a cynic, if you chose an ironic costume that you knew everyone would take at face value and threw yourself wholeheartedly into something you'd been bullied into in the first place? – But at that moment the Atrium door opened and Tony burst in. He looked like he didn't know whether to wring his hands of giggle.

"Skip, Sarah? Um, development."

"What's going on?" asked Sarah, instantly alert.

"Leon wants a strike."

Sorry this took so long. You know that bit when you get stuck at one sentence because you just can't make it sound right? Yeah. That and calculus.