fic: so high school [1/???]
title: So High School [1/??]
pairing: Leslie/Ann
rating: PG13
words: ~2000
notes: 90s HIGH SCHOOL AU AWW YEAH. Title is dumb but also a reference to "The Fight." Also super thanks to unicornsforsale for looking this mess over.
“It’s not our fault you didn’t take your initial warning more seriously, Ms. Perkins,” Principal Gunderson said, offering a flash of condescension over his horn rimmed glasses that made her want to fight back all the more.
The offending plaid flannel shirt in question still had its arms tied around her middle, allegedly drawing more attention to her midriff than when she was donning the cool-new-girl-from-Michigan brand crop top in the first place. “But I was doing what Mr. Dexhart told me to do,” Ann said evenly, “I covered myself up.”
“Ms. Perkins, I understand it’s difficult finding a niche in a new school,” Gunderson glossed over her words as though he hadn’t even heard them, and probably elected to ignore her eye roll, too. “But drawing unwanted attention to yourself is not going to get you the kind of friends you want.” The line of Ann’s mouth tightened into a straight seam and she felt the shell of her ears go red (perfectly visible thanks to the side-ponytail, ugh).
She wasn’t even in a position to school this guy. Ann was smarter than him, at least on this level, and she couldn’t tell him what a patronizing, slut-shaming jackass he was without getting in more trouble. There had to be a better way than this, but no, she had to just sit here and be expected to endure it. It was bullshit. And it was the underscoring mantra of bullshit, bullshit, bullshit that kept her from losing her cool long enough to make it through this special meeting.
“So I think I can help you,” he said. “You can, of course, elect to take detention with me this Saturday, or you can go to Mr. Swanson’s inaugural taxidermy club meeting after school today.” For a high school that had a conservative stickler to dress code, Pawnee had kind of a hippie-dippy way of punishing you for it.
Looking forward to all the non-slutty friends I’ll be making in taxidermy club, she thought right then. And: Yeah, that’ll be a blast: the redemptive power of stuffing dead animals on your out-of-control teen, which came in the bathroom stall about five minutes after she left Gunderson’s office and would’ve been cool if she’d thought to say it.
Ann should’ve felt like she got off easy, but she shouldn’t have gotten in trouble in the first place. And she didn’t want to play by going to this stupid taxidermy club meeting, but what could she do? The final period was nearly over, so judgment was sweeping down on her without much time to piece together any kind of alternative. And it wasn’t like she had much on her social agenda anyway, other than coming home to curl up on the couch and fall into the warm embrace of Oprah Winfrey. It could even be painless.
With resignation, Ann marched onto the south hall toward the woodshop, against the flow of traffic of students freed from classes. She had untied the shirt from her waist and slipped it on, though defiantly kept the shirt unbuttoned. Wasn’t like Gunderson was going to be there, and if the weird dudes into taxidermy were going to make a fuss about it, that was their goddamn problem.
Funny thing was, other than Mr. Swanson, the advisor, there wasn’t a dude in sight. Just a single girl sitting no more than a foot away from his desk, hands folded on the desk. She was sitting up so rigidly and her blonde perm was so poofy that it gave off the impression that she was maybe struck by lightning a second before Ann walked in. But as soon as the girl heard the clack of Ann’s boots, she whipped around to face her. “See!” she turned back to Mr. Swanson for a moment before standing up and marching to meet Ann. “Power of community outreach!” She beamed at Ann fondly, immediately taking her hand.
“You’re new,” she said.
“It’s Ann, actually,” she joked, feeling weirdly nervous. Maybe it was that she was hoping she’d just sit in the back until this thing was over; Ann certainly didn’t expect to be the center of anybody’s attention. “I-”
“You must’ve seen the flyers,” she pressed on, withdrawing her hands to gesticulate excitedly. “And my name’s all over them, but in case you missed it, I’m Leslie Knope,” she reached around awkwardly to take Ann’s loosely hanging hand again and shake firmly.
Contrary to Gunderson’s initial assessment, Ann wasn’t actively seeking to please anybody, but Leslie was so earnest and excited that Ann couldn’t bear to burst her bubble. “Yeah, flyers,” she mumbled, nodding.
Leslie trotted over to Mr. Swanson’s desk again, who seemed to be assessing the whole situation without blinking or visibly breathing. “This was Mr. Swanson’s first pass at it, can you believe it?” Leslie held up a piece of typewriter paper reading only:
- “Basic taxidermy taught by a man. 3:30 PM. Woodshop. Must furnish own animal corpses. Not liable for injuries acquired or ‘laws’ broken while hunting for animals.”
Mr. Swanson finally spoke. “It was meant to attract the attention of those dedicated to the craft.” Ann never saw his lower lip move, only the faint quiver of his mustache.
“Oh, c’mon, Mr. Swanson, nobody’s going to notice just one flyer in your one bitty classroom! You’ve gotta reach out.” Leslie put her hands on her hips but smiled fondly at him.
He did not return the expression. “It was fine the way it was, Leslie.”
“But don’t you actually want people to show up?” Leslie said, gesturing to Ann. “We have a whole person here!”
“But no actual materials,” Mr. Swanson pointed out.
“I might’ve hit a squirrel on the ride over this morning,” Ann said.
Mr. Swanson took this bit a lot more seriously than Ann had intended. “Unless you’re coming here to impart your own expert knowledge, you’re going to want something that small shot through the eye, at least.”
“Uh, I don’t have anything to shoot at, uh, anything,” she laughed nervously.
Mr. Swanson offered a pointed look at Leslie.
“Still! Interest!” Leslie said at a volume level the teachers at Pawnee Elementary wouldn’t have tolerated for a second. “And I’ll get more people, I promise.”
“I didn’t ask for your help,” Mr. Swanson said.
“But in the spirit of public service, and maybe a little bit in the spirit signing off on my nomination form for Student Council President, I want to make this school better. And since all the other clubs have presidents already, serving that office in several successful ones myself,” she offered a self-satisfied little grin to Ann at this moment. “I want to bring this one off the ground. Face it, buddy,” her grin was finally on Mr. Swanson again as she gently stabbed his desk with her index finger to audibly punctuate the next three syllables: “You. Need. Me.”
“What I need is for you to come back with actual things to taxidermy.”
As though trying to distract a rather large audience from Mr. Swanson’s negativity, she half-shouted, “Good meeting, everyone!” and clapped her hands together, facing Ann. “Stoked for tomorrow already?” she said, interpreting Ann’s relief at the brevity of the meeting as actual excitement.
And, again, she found agreeing with Leslie irresistible. “Yeah, yeah. Um, want me to walk you out to your car?”
Leslie reddened. “Uh, I don’t-my mom’s picking me up.”
“Oh, what grade are you?” Ann said as they headed off to the hallway.
“Junior.”
“So you skipped grades or something?” Ann offered. “It wouldn’t surprise me, you seem to have your shit together.”
Leslie laughed nervously. “No, I-uh, flunked my driver’s test a bunch of times already. But next time!” she held up her crossed fingers.
“Wait-what time did you tell her to pick you up?”
“Oh. Six?” At Ann’s look, she shrugged. “It was supposed to be illuminating and difficult and all that! I was going to have Mr. Swanson explain his whole process, and I’d do a bit on the history of taxidermy and hunting in Pawnee, and then we’d stuff something.”
“Well,” Ann said, “I can give you a ride home if you want.”
“Really? I mean, it’s not too far. I can walk.”
“Oh, c’mon, Leslie, let someone do you a favor for once,” Ann goaded, grinning as they pushed through the double doors to the parking lot.
She hadn’t thought this through well, she’d realized once she had to swipe away several diet coke cans, receipts, and homework from her old school due sometime last May in order to clear enough space for Leslie to ride shotgun. “Sorry,” Ann said. “Usually I’m not this bad, but debris accumulated during the move and stuff.”
“Oh, it’s no big.” Leslie offered a genuinely reassuring smile. “This is nothing on my bedroom. Besides, I can’t criticize you too much when you’re giving me a ride home and were the only one to show up to the meeting. Sorry we didn’t actually do much, but next time!”
Luckily, Ann could blame her screwed-up expression on driving rather than actually reacting. But still, it didn’t feel quite right. “Leslie, I didn’t come because I wanted to.”
Ann stared straight ahead, though they were stopped at the intersection leading to the main road and she could afford a second of eye contact. A soft “oh,” was all Ann heard.
“It was-well, Gunderson wanted me to go.”
“That’s still good, right?” Leslie said, her perm bouncing in Ann’s periphery. “That means he’s taking my efforts seriously! He’s supporting me one student at a time, encouraging-”
“It was that or detention,” Ann winced.
“First day?” Leslie said, sounding awestruck. “What did you even do?”
Ann took her hand from 2:00 to peel away the flannel shirt to further show her belly. “Can’t go walking around like this, apparently.”
She wasn’t sure why she sounded apologetic all of a sudden; where was the bravado she built up in the bathroom stall, alone? It had been so clear that she was right and she couldn’t even sell it to this girl.
“That isn’t fair,” Leslie said immediately. “I mean, look at that.” She gestured out the window to the football field filled with shirtless, sweaty teenage boys. “We can get exposed to Andy Dwyer’s ta-tas but your bellybutton is going to cause a riot?”
“Well, he doesn’t go around during the day shirtless-unless he does, I don’t know,” Ann conceded.
“Still, we should bring it up with the student council-it’s a left, here,” she added quickly as they almost passed Mockingbird Lane. “Pawnee only lifted the requirement that girls wear skirts every day, like, ten years ago. Ann, together, you and I can bring the dress codes up to the twentieth century!”
“You don’t need to do that for me,” Ann said shyly.
“Oh. Um, right at the next intersection.” Leslie was oddly quiet until they turned. “So, you’re not coming to the taxidermy club again tomorrow, I take it?”
“Oh! No, no, no. I mean-yes, yeah. I’m coming,” Ann stammered. “I just meant-you don’t need to do that for me, just because. It was a stupid mistake anyway.”
“I know I may not really know you,” Leslie began tentatively, “and it’s not my fight, but I still wanna help you fight it.”
Ann didn’t know what to say, but she thought she’d say something anyway. “Thanks.” The shadows from the trees overhead flitted over their legs as they drove on.
After a long comfortable while, Leslie said, “Oh, here.” Ann slowed, the engine growing quieter and the sound absorbed by crunching gravel. “Thanks, Ann.” She threw a smile over her shoulder as she opened the car door. Leslie took a step onto the curb, but turned, back, leaning over to poke her head inside the car for a moment. She added, “Tomorrow, then?”
“Tomorrow,” Ann agreed.