forget your troubles, happy days are here again / you better chase all your troubles away

[highf]

So here's what you missed on Glee:

After getting slushied in the face for years and dealing with Karofsky's bullying, Kurt's decided to take a few defense lessons from the Black Widow herself - ( "I... just wanted to say thank you, again, for letting me participate in this course, and how much I'm looking forward to future lessons. You kind of blew

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[burnwithus]

The dress seals it. Everything about it, from the vibrant color to all the flourishes of shape (that Katniss doesn't understand and yet still recognizes) screams of her ex-stylist's tastes and she reaches out to touch the dress after a long moment of silence, biting down hard on her bottom lip. Is it wrong to see other people - people she's loved - within completely different individuals? Is it as innocent as missing him, or is it insidious, like she's subconsciously trying to replace him? Katniss can't tell.

But for a moment, Katniss thinks she might cry. She doesn't, but if she were a different type of girl, she might. Not her, though. Not when it's a weakness she can't afford.

Cinna always managed to see through it anyways. Katniss stares at Kurt's for a few seconds too long before finally breaking the silence.

"I can't wear that," she protests, because it's cursory to do so. "It won't...fit," and by that, Katniss means to say that she won't fill it out because she hasn't got anything on her chest and besides, the dress is so long that she'll probably end up tripping over her feet.

[highf]

"Oh, it'll fit. I've made little nips and tucks to my clothes more often than I can count, and you're... about the size I was a couple of years ago, actually," Kurt remarks with a small smile, one incapable of being too glad for the memory of the fact. Still, he's capable of seeing all of their faces too clearly, the guys who'd push him into the lockers, who'd try to force him to use the girls' bathroom. Without the physical presence to stand tall, bullying becomes that much harder.

Not that there's really a need to discuss that right now.

But he can see her discomfort, and he knows not to press too hard. Sometimes, a prod in the right direction is all that one needs to realize a greater truth, a greater happiness. Too much, though, and it'll just send a person careening, balking.

"You don't have to wear it out there if you don't want," Kurt adds. "I think you'd look beautiful. Might even outshine Santana, and she'd be... pretty mad about that, admittedly. But you've got this, I don't know, this fire in you, and I wish you'd let it out a little more. You know?"

[burnwithus]

I'm still betting on you, girl on fire.

Sometimes it felt like everybody had this delusion about the strength of her character, or the temperament of her personality that was reflected in a great many fire metaphors (ha). When in reality, it was more like she was a spark, long guttered out. Small in magnitude, even before that.

But this dress was the type of thing that would have boosted her spirits before, as shallow and pedantic as that sounded and as much as she would never admit it. Not because of the dress itself, but by the illusion that it created. Cinna would have told her that these things were therapeutic in their own right.

"I'll wear it," Katniss decides suddenly, never as level headed as she sets herself out to be. For Cinna. Because she's the master of utterly useless gestures. "But it's going to look stupid."

[highf]

With permission granted, Kurt shakes his head and starts to usher her to the side, slightly away from the box, where people might stumble across them any moment. Opening the door to the single-person bathroom, Kurt quickly waves her in, hoping that she doesn't have too much modesty to mind showing a bit of skin around Kurt. He's not interested in women anyway, not like that- but there are people who don't seem to get the message, and with Katniss being from a world so unlike his own, Kurt can't be sure. "Ridiculous," he breathes, shaking his head. "You're going to look fabulous, I can prove it to you. Here."

Taking a black shawl grabbed from the box, Kurt throws it over the mirror, not wanting her to see the transformation until it's done.

"If you need, I can turn around while you put on the dress first. Just pull it up to chest height, and if you need help with the zipper, I can get that much. I've got an emergency sewing kit with me, anyway, if we need to work on any last nips and tucks."