If you're smart, you can be a hero, If you're dumb, you can be dead.

[dirtyword]

CHARACTERS: Brendan Frye, Kurt Hummel. Closed!
LOCATION: Library
WARNINGS: None.
SUMMARY: Kurt has someone looking out for him. That someone just so happens to be unraveling part of another crew members mystery.
NOTES: NONE.


He likes the library. Likes it a little too much, maybe, but it reminds him of hushed conversations in school; of Brain's Rubik's cube and plans.

He's not sure how long he's staring at the notebook he's taken, how long he's been fiddling with the gold bishop that's weighted oddly. It's certainly been a while, though, because when he looks up there's a crick in his neck he didn't realize he had, and his eyes are staring to hurt.

Glasses slip off, and he leans back in his chair, rubbing at his eyes, knowing full-well that the longer he stares at Ariadne's stuff the longer he's just going to end up nowhere. He grabs the notebook, pockets the bishop and is about to walk out of the nice little niche he's made himself before catching sight of someone else.

Fair skin, blue eyes--but it's the neatly cared for coiffure that sets him apart from the people Brendan generally tries to avoid. It's Kurt.

"Hey." All he says. All he needs to say, standing right behind him.

Comments

[showbizpanache]

"Hey," said Kurt before he turned to look at who had approached. It was Brendan--that quiet, somewhat enigmatic boy who Kurt had initially perceived as rude until the maze. Everything had changed after the maze.

"Sit down?" he invited, moving his notes aside. He covered them up with one arm, a little shy.

/rises from ashses

[dirtyword]

Brendan nods when the other replies, but it takes him a moment to actually sit. he's scrutinizing things again--overly so, but he takes in the notes, the way one arm is 'casually' draped over it, and then makes eye-contact with the other.

Sheepish. Shy. For some reason he's reminded of Bambi. But in a matter of seconds he's rocking his chair back on two legs, feet propped up against the table. He's tired of sitting but does it anyway; and the weight of the chess piece he's taken for Ariadne is comforting for some reason, even if the notebook is still on his lap instead of up on the table.

"Homework?" He asks, a wry, sarcastic smile on his face.

wheeeee

[showbizpanache]

"Extra-curricular," Kurt replies with a little smile. "Just passing the time. How about you?"

He hasn't made up his mind about Brendan. They share something similar, though, something unspoken--something that had clicked between them in the Maze. It was the fact that they held the unfortunate stigma of being normal, of being fish out of water in a dark and terrifying place like this.

It makes Kurt feel less alone, and he holds onto that whenever he can.

[dirtyword]

Normal--that's about right. Even if Brendan still things of the few weeks that weren't exactly 'normal,' since his version of normal consists of sitting in the back, eating lunch where no one can find him and hating everyone.

He makes a note to ask later--he doesn't want to pry, at least not right now, and he finds himself trying to smooth down the oddly placed duct-taped section of his jacket. He needed to either get someone who could sew or find another piece of tape.

"Shooting the shat," He responds. Ditto, is really what he means. He'd let Kurt in on the secret but he's too busy taking the other's minute facial expressions in, finally letting out a sigh.

He needs to stop doing this. Not trusting everyone--believing the worst. He know he does. But he can't help but assume Kurt's up to something. After he tries to stretch his neck, Brendan speaks again:

"What d'you got?" A brief nod towards the papers.

[showbizpanache]

Kurt blushes again, holding his notebook close.

"It's, ah--it's a draft," he begins, stalling. Why am I so embarrassed about this? he asks himself. I wouldn't be back home. He knows the answer-- Back home, he wasn't in desperate search for allies, for friends. Back home, he didn't feel so alone.

"A musical," he finally admits. "I've been composing it since I arrived here."

[dirtyword]

A musical?

Brendan's brow shoots up--because of all the things he's expecting, it's not a musical. Documents. Research. Secrets. A diary, even. But a musical?

He glances at his own notebook--well, Ariadne's--and it hits him. Kurt is 100%, completely normal. For some reason, that bothers Brendan. That someone like that could get on the ship: just a teenager writing a musical, nothing more nothing less. Sure, he's stubborn, but a thick head won't get you anywhere on this ship.

He's not sure what exactly he's feeling. Brendan's either angry at the ship for bringing someone like this in, or jealous because he's not Kurt. It's difficult to discern right now, and it's part of the reason the curly haired detective falls into silence, just watching what Kurt does. Eventually, he speaks: feet moving off the table, sitting up a little more properly.

"So that's what you do back home? Write music?"

[showbizpanache]

"Not really," Kurt admits. Brendan has gone quiet, and once again Kurt feels like he's been presented with some mystery he can't be bothered to put together. Maybe Brendan feels the same way--and just hid himself away, protecting himself from being put together.

Or something.

"I'm more into performing," he explains. "I was working on getting into a performing arts school back home, for musical theater. I'm not really sure how well that was going, but--well, there is a lot of idle time here. So I started writing."

[dirtyword]

"Uh-huh."

It's quickly moving to a familiar pattern--Brendan saying maybe two or three syllables, staring, and then talking after he's made his his observations.

Kurt's hands--clean. Well-polished. Matches the rest of him: meticulous. Neat. Doesn't do anything too rough, at least. He glances down, briefly, at his own hands and then his gaze flicks up.

Self-conscious, obviously. Less obviously, looking for a place to belong.

Sorry you're in space now, kid. It's what he wants to say, but he isn't about to crack his own emotional damn. He's never been an optimistic person, always cynical. This is no exception.

Nah, there's something about the way Kurt actually looks at him that Brendan can't place. The blue eyes are bright, are alive, but there's a guarded wariness to them. Something Brendan's seen before, just not in anyone but his world.

You're either a sap, a player, or stuck in the battlefield of San Clemente High. Looks like it isn't just his own high school. Kid may have it comfy, probably comfier than Brendan ever had, but there's no ruling out the kid hasn't been hurt. Maybe not damaged goods like himself, but Kurt's definitely a fighter, even if no one else sees it but him.

"Hey." He blinks, pauses for a few seconds and then rises, sticking his hands in his jacket pocket, immediately talking. It's probably more than he's ever said to anyone that wasn't Wichita, Arthur or Jack Kelly.

"Let's lay it on the square: you're dead weight." No, harsh. Too harsh--dial it down. Pretend it's Em, not Brain.

Brendan begins to pace.

"Truth is, you've never been in a fight. That's fine, not very many of us cats have had the opportunity to dance the Broderick with roundheels. But here's the issue, kid." Like he isn't technically older than him, "It's stupid to let any wiseguy brace you and shake you down. You behind the eight-ball, you take a powder, you let me know."

[showbizpanache]

Brendan has an odd way of speaking; Kurt knows that. It hadn't taken him long to figure it out-- It's sort of like speaking with Brittany, in a way, except that Brendan isn't talking enthusiastically about unicorns and flying space monkeys.

If anything, this is a little easier. "I've been learning," he says a little defensively, because he knows he isn't a fighter--and really, is that such a bad thing? "John taught me how to use a gun, and some self-defense techniques."

He doesn't mention how much he loathes to use them, or how ineffectual he'll probably be-- Violence made his life hell for far too long, and he never wants to use it himself. Not ever.

[dirtyword]

"I'm not saying you can't; I'm saying you ever get in over your head, you let me know." Why was that so hard to grasp? Not that Kurt should have gotten it right away--but Brendan was almost exasperated.

Emily had called him. Too late--too, too late. He wasn't even sure how long he stared at her lifeless body before getting up.

"I gotta way of figuring things out before other folks do."

[showbizpanache]

"I don't need protecting," he answers somewhat harshly, then quickly deflates--because he does. He knows he does; he isn't built for this place, no matter how many weapons he has.

"Thank you," he says apologetically. "And I've noticed; you're very perceptive." He offers Brendan a small smile.

[dirtyword]

Harsh is fine--Brendan can take harsh, and it rolls off of him like water off a bird's back. It does, however, remind him: Kurt isn't from his place. Isn't from a world of hash heads and heroin, of guns and blades, of lockers and payphones.

There's a gentle thumping sound as he flops back into his chair and tilts it back, balancing it once more. There's no non-awkward way to tell the other he has the same eyes as Emily.

"Don't think of it as protecting. Just know you have a fallback if you get yourself into a jam, alright?" A sigh, and then he shrugs.

"I used to be in the drama club."

[showbizpanache]

"You were?" Kurt's happy with the change in topic; it's nice to talk about something innocuous, something normal. It's strange-- Back home, he'd been anything but normal, and he'd flourished.

Here, normal is all he wants.

"What plays were you in?" he asks, his eyes lighting up.

[dirtyword]

Brendan's shrug is light; noncommittal.

"Shakespeare. Got into it because of a dame." He had wanted to get closer to Kara--wanted to get into her world. That was freshman year, before he met Em. They'd made a killing--he and Dode and Kara.

"Wound up selling a lot more than I was acting."