dorothy's slippers.

[highf]

So here's what you missed on Glee:

Puck and Santana have been stranded on an island that kind of reminds them of Lost, except without the cool polar bears and the smoke monster, and both of them are missing home and feeling way out of their league, even if neither will admit to it. ( "Not your type of party, is it?" "If I say no, you're going to

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[user_wasp]

"What the fuck," said Lisbeth Salander as she walked in on a lost Christmas elf singing an American showtune. An American singing teenager would match Puck, she thought, jamming her hands further into her pockets.

The best thing to do, she thought, was let him wear himself out. Then she could ask, when she was safe from any serenading. Lisbeth picked up a research journal on genetics, not even bound in a hard cover, and sat down to wait.

[highf]

There was very little in the world that stood a greater chance of stifling Kurt Hummel's voice than a quietly unimpressed audience. It was one thing to have people catcalling at every turn, people jeering and making his life difficult just for the sake of making some narrow-minded point, and it was another entirely to see a girl who, judging by appearance alone, wasn't the sort who'd give him a hard time about who he was, but stared right through the song and the music and cared for none of it. He could push through to the end if he wanted, but there was a strain in his voice that was painful even to Kurt's own ears, and so he stopped, pressing his lips together almost shyly, trying to hide his disappointment.

"Sorry," he apologized, turning to face the bookshelf and wondering if it might serve as a decent distraction. "Didn't mean to sound off in such a small room and bother anyone."

[user_wasp]

Lisbeth looked back up from her book.

"You don't have to stop," she said, her voice thick with the Swedish accent. "You're good." Though she'd spent years hanging around a band, the fact remained that music still eluded her. One needed feelings for it, and there might not have been another on the island who kept hers as tightly locked away as Lisbeth Salander.

She looked at the Christmas elf more carefully this time. "Singing is not," she said. Lisbeth was not sure she would know what to say in Swedish, let alone English. But she didn't like how quickly he shut down. People did not usually respond so quickly to her. "I don't get music. But you can keep going."

Lisbeth realized she might be getting soft.

[highf]

It was the accent which struck Kurt first, his brows pulling together as he tried to pin it down. Without the ability to actually take off as he desired and tour around all of Europe, Kurt had spent much of his life watching foreign films instead, learning little customs and researching into any phrases that didn't translate particularly well in subtitles. Only upon realizing that learning where this woman was from alone wouldn't tell him much did Kurt shake himself away from that train of thought.

"I don't think that singing to a vaguely unwilling audience when my own desire has been stamped out by the lack of fervor is... a very smart idea," he admitted first, crossing his arms over his chest and meeting her gaze, more with surprise than in defense. "Besides which, I find your latter statement far more terrifying and intriguing all at once, unless I happen to be reinterpreting. When you say that you don't get music... is that to say that you've never enjoyed it? Never felt the melodies resonate with your emotions?"

[user_wasp]

Lisbeth gave him a long, measured, blank look.

Tiny and only just now starting to turn more than a very pale shade of white, Lisbeth could have easily passed for a Goth teen. It was her eyes that would give her away in the end, dark and old. "I've seen people sing in worse," she said.

He seemed fragile in a way that struck her core, and Lisbeth was not easily struck. "Music is the result of numbers," she said. "Any song can be traced back to a rotating group of equations. I enjoy math."

[highf]

It was the shadows in her eyes that stopped him from making a direct quip. From responding in the bright way that he did most questions, particularly those for which he was sure of his answer. Instead, his lips simply quirked and he offered a light shrug, tempted to let his gaze blur a little. If he didn't squint too much, it was almost like having Tina back again. Almost. (Far less happy, though, and without Mike Chang's abs trailing closely behind.)

"So have I, even if usually in video instead of in person," he agreed with a soft exhale. "The difference is that I don't stand to gain anything from it right now. Whether for myself or something bigger."

After a pause, he finds that he can't help the quip that comes immediately to mind. "Also, anything can be traced back to math if you go far enough. That doesn't mean there isn't more to be found."

[user_wasp]

It was enough that she gave him an up-nod, and her name. "I'm Lisbeth. You are?" People here were so open, so free with their information that it actually made her itch sometimes. Maybe all those nights spent in restraints hadn't been too far off, she would wonder, watching people go to parties and classes on a fucking desert island and not having the faintest idea why.

"What else can you find?"

[highf]

"Kurt," he replied immediately, slightly taken aback by... well, he couldn't tell what he'd managed to get her to do, exactly. It seemed like she was listening, perhaps even willing to give his statement a chance, but at the same time, her direct look had Kurt wondering if she was quickly growing tired of any and all attempts on his part to get her to see outside of a computer screen or math text. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Lisbeth." He nodded his head, still fascinated regardless. Less by her appearance than her actual personality (once again, Tina had desensitized him to the strange whims of others when it came to fashion- somewhat).

"And... I honestly don't even know where to begin," he remarked with a small, shy smile. "Understanding. Release. When you just listen to a song and realize... wow. That's what I've been looking for. That's how I feel. It may take some time before you find that one or several songs, but it happens, if you have the patience to listen."