Kurt stared into the bathroom mirror, trying to catch that unexpected glint a second time. He tilted his head from side to side, turned his chin slightly from left to right … and suddenly there it was. He ran his fingers gently along the section of hair, leaning in close to the mirror to find the offending strand. Reaching it, he gave a sharp pull, yanking it from his head. He stared at it in open-mouthed horror.

* * *

“I’m old, Mercedes,” he told his best friend at the emergency brunch date he’d summoned her to. “Washed up. Dried out. Withering away.”

“It’s one gray hair, Kurt,” she said, spearing a piece of pancake with her fork. “You’ll survive. You’re the youngest professor in the entire History department. You’re not even thirty yet, are you?”

“Twenty-eight, and already losing my looks,” Kurt groaned. “I’m going to be single for the rest of my life.”

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” Mercedes said. “You’re gorgeous and you know it. You still get carded when you buy alcohol. All you need to do is start going out once in a while and you’ll meet more hot men than you know what to do with.”

“It’s this damned American History survey course they’re making me teach,” Kurt said. “Don’t they realize I’m completely unqualified for this? I haven’t got a clue about anything that happened before 1900, and we won’t get that far for a semester and a half! If the class prep alone is giving me gray hairs, I can’t imagine what it will be like when I start trying to lecture. As far as I’m concerned, the United States didn’t even exist before the Civil War. Why can’t they just leave me alone and let me teach all my post-WWI gender studies courses?”

“Because it’s your second year as a professor, and that means you’re on Freshman duty,” Mercedes said. “Nobody wants to teach the survey courses, and the brand new professors are exempt, so that means all the rest of the pre-tenure people are stuck with them. Think of it as a form of hazing.”

“Whatever it is,” Kurt said, “It’s ruining my life.”

“Hey, they made me teach Ancient five years running just because I know Latin and Greek,” Mercedes pointed out. “What the hell do I know about the Peloponnesian War? I’m a Medievalist!”

“North America was colonized in medieval times, right?” Kurt joked. “Like, 1700 or so?”

Mercedes threw a cube of cantaloupe at him. “Just for that, I’m speaking in Old English for the rest of this meal.”

“Sorry, sorry, I was just kidding!”

“Hwat?”

* * *

Blaine took one last look at himself in the dorm room’s full-length mirror before leaving for his first ever college class. His roommate, Mike, had left at the ungodly hour of 8:15 to go to a brutal five-day-a-week Intro to German class, so there was nobody around to mock his attention to his own appearance.

He took in his clean-shaven face, gelled hair, green and black argyle cardigan, and gray pants, approving of what he saw. He looked like an adult, Blaine thought. After years and years of prep school, somehow dressing in a blazer each day seemed like a boyish thing to do. He felt more comfortable, more grown-up, wearing clothes of his own choosing.

Blaine was so excited to finally be in college. He’d been giddy all through orientation, thrilled to finally be out of the constant supervision of adults, eager but not quite ready to stop hiding and truly be himself. He couldn’t wait for classes to begin, to finally find out what it was like for teachers to actually treat their students like adults instead of just pretending to.

He smoothed his hair with his hand one last time, grabbed his messenger bag from the desk, and headed out to history class.

* * *

Kurt arrived five minutes early for the first day of class, so that he’d have time to fight down the butterflies in his stomach. He watched as students slowly filled the classroom, entering alone or in twos and threes. Very few of them seemed to know each other. Kurt supposed that was normal for the first day of a survey course made up mostly of freshmen. They’d get to know each other as time went on. 

Another student walked through the door, and wow, Kurt knew he shouldn’t think about students this way, but this kid was seriously hot. He was on the short side, but with well-toned muscles and the most luscious ass Kurt had ever seen. He was dressed in a buttoned-down prep-school style and his dark hair was gelled far too much, but his eyes were an unbelievable shade of coffee brown and gold that made Kurt want to just stare into them forever. He forced himself to look away as the student took a seat next to a tall Asian boy he seemed to know.

Kurt cleared his throat. Lecturing, he reminded himself, is just a form of acting.

“Good morning! I’m Professor Hummel. If you’re here for American History 101, you’re in the right place. Let me start off by introducing our TAs: Meg, Ryanne, Tom, and Hank. I vehemently deny any accusation that I hired them solely based on their names.” The students laughed. This was off to a good start.

“Actually, I go by Thomas,” Tom piped up.

“You’re fired,” Kurt said, eliciting another round of laughter. “The TAs are here to lead discussion groups and to answer any questions you might have about the class material and assignments, but of course you’re always welcome to talk to me directly if you prefer. Okay, you should all have gotten a copy of the syllabus on the class website. Anyone have trouble finding it?” He paused for a moment, but nobody said anything. “And I also want to point out that this is a year-long class, and you can only get credit if you complete, and pass, both semesters. Let me repeat that. THIS IS A YEAR-LONG CLASS. YOU MUST TAKE BOTH HALVES TO GET ANY CREDIT. I don’t want to hear anyone complaining in January that they didn’t know what they were getting into.”

Kurt paused again, catching a few stray nods from the students. The preppy guy with the beautiful eyes was staring straight at him, oddly.

“Great. Now that we’ve got that sorted out, let’s jump right into our first topic, colonization. Who can tell me some of the reasons European colonists came to North America? Anyone seen Disney’s Pocahontas? Because there’s a song in there that will give away two of the more irrelevant ones.” A few hands went up, and Kurt breathed a sigh of relief before calling on a girl in the third row. Disaster averted, at least for the first day.

* * *

This was supposed to be a study group, but Blaine was starting to think it had more the feel of a gossip circle. His roommate Mike, a girl named Tina that Mike had instantly developed a crush on, and Tina’s roommate Rachel. All four of them were Theater majors who had found themselves together in American History 101 to fulfill one of the college’s subject distribution requirements. They’d agreed to form a study group, banding together for support in what was a weak academic area for all of them. Or possibly just so Mike and Tina would have an opportunity to spend a bunch of time batting their eyes at each other. Blaine sighed as the discussion strayed away from academic topics yet again.

“At least Professor Hummel is nice to look at,” Rachel said. “I don’t know if I could have stayed awake through that miserable World History class I checked out the first day. The professor was like eighty years old and talked in a monotone.”

“Definitely a good piece of eye candy,” Tina said, flashing a coy smile at Mike. 

Mike looked annoyed. “Come on, he’s obviously gay,” he said.

Blaine tried not to seem interested in Mike’s assessment.

“So what?” Tina asked. “That doesn’t stop me from looking and appreciating, does it? Even you should be able to see that he’s incredibly hot.”

“He’s okay, I guess,” Mike said grudgingly.

“What do you think, Blaine?” Tina asked. “Is Professor Hummel incredibly hot or ‘just okay’?”

He’s stunning, Blaine thought. Sometimes I think I could stare into his clear blue eyes all day long, but then he steps out from behind the podium and my eyes drift lower and I can’t help but imagine what he would look like without those tight jeans and that ironic tweed jacket, what those luscious lips would taste like, what it would feel like to run my fingers through his hair and—

“Blaine?” Tina repeated.

Fuck. “Can we just talk about the Pennsylvania colony, please?” Blaine said uncomfortably. “I have a math quiz to study for tonight, too.”

“Bo-ring,” Rachel complained.

“Sorry,” Blaine said. “I’m just … I’ve just got a lot on my mind right now.”

* * *

Kurt sighed and cracked open another book. It was three weeks into the class, and even though it seemed to be going fine, he was still close to having panic attacks before every lecture. His upper-level courses, which were in his actual field of expertise, were so much easier. He spent three times as long prepping for American History as for anything else, because he simply could not keep straight what France and Spain and Portugal and Great Britain had all been arguing about in the 1700s. Thank goodness he had the freedom to focus more on social history aspects, like the differences between social conditions and political freedoms in the various colonies, which were actually pretty interesting when you started to get into the details. And there were that boy’s beautiful eyes to focus on during class when things got too boring. Kurt still hadn’t gotten the student’s name, since he never asked any questions, but he always seemed to be transfixed by the lecture.

Suddenly, there the student was, standing in the doorway to Kurt’s office. “Professor Hummel? Do you have a few minutes? It’s your office hours, right?”

“Yes, yes, of course, come in!” Kurt shoved his books aside. “I recognize you from American History, but I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“It’s Blaine. Blaine Anderson.”

“Nice to meet you, Blaine. Questions about the class already? Most people don’t bother to show up for office hours until I’ve at least handed out the first assignment,” Kurt teased lightly. 

“Actually, it’s not about class.” Blaine suddenly looked shy. “I … Do you mind if I close the door?” He saw Kurt’s hesitation and quickly added, “I saw the ‘Safe Space’ rainbow flag sign on your bulletin board and I just wanted to … talk. About …”

“Yes, absolutely, close the door if it makes you feel more comfortable.” Kurt had taken the university’s Safe Space training course when he’d first arrived on campus a year ago, and in all that time not a single student had come to talk to him about personal issues. He hoped he remembered what they’d covered in the course. Not that it was all that helpful in the first place. He decided this was not a conversation to have from behind a desk, so he moved around and sat in one of the chairs on the other side, motioning Blaine to take the other.

There was an awkward silence. “So …” Kurt said, trying to get the conversation started. “Are you maybe starting to question if you might be …”

Blaine cut him off with a bitter laugh. “Oh no, I’m way past the questioning stage. I’m gay. 100% gay.”

“You could have fooled me,” Kurt said, a dreamy smile on his face. “When I saw you walk into class the first day, I thought, ‘Damn, why are all the hot guys straight?’” He stopped, horrified at what he’d just said. “Not that I’d ever … with a student … oh my god, so much for creating a safe space. I’m so sorry. Let’s just forget I said that. Shit.”

Blaine was blushing, but he looked pleased with himself. “No, I’m flattered. On two fronts, actually. I’ve spent a lot of time getting really good at passing as straight. That’s what I wanted to talk about.”

Kurt tried to look composed and helpful, though all he wanted was to sink through the floor and disappear.

“I came out when I was fifteen. Sophomore year in high school. There was one other gay guy in my school, and I asked him to a school dance. And then a bunch of guys beat the crap out of us. I was in the hospital for a week, and my parents pulled me out of school for the rest of the year until all my injuries were fully healed. I had to repeat my sophomore year.”

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” Kurt said. “That must have been terrible.”

“Yeah …” Blaine looked around uncomfortably, not wanting to think about how terrible it had really been. “I went to a different school after that. It was a lot better, they had a zero-tolerance policy for bullying and violence. But it was still Ohio. I decided my life would just be easier if I stayed in the closet. So that’s what I did. There wasn’t anyone I wanted to date there anyway, so it wasn’t like it mattered. Well, except for Sebastian but that was … okay, that’s a whole separate story. The point is, I just kept telling myself that I’d go to college somewhere that wasn’t Ohio, and then I’d be able to come out and everything would be fine.”

“Okay,” Kurt said, still not sure where this story was going.

“But here I am now, New Jersey, in the middle of a university campus that seems completely pro-gay, and I’m still scared to come out. So I guess I just want to ask, how safe is it really? Am I going to be … okay?”

“That’s a complicated question,” Kurt said. He thought about it for a moment. “Okay, just physically, you will be absolutely safe on campus. The last time there was a violent incident here was more than twenty years ago, and there’s practically no chance it would ever happen again. The students just aren’t like that. And everyone knows that anyone who did that would be expelled immediately. Off campus … things happen, but rarely, and it’s one of the safer places in the country to be, really. It’s not like Ohio. I’m actually from there too, coincidentally. I was out in high school in Ohio, and I can tell you, New Jersey is a whole different experience.”

Blaine was starting to look a little more relaxed. “You said it was complicated,” he said. “That doesn’t sound so complicated.”

“It’s more complicated when you look beyond physical violence,” Kurt said. “Most people on campus won’t care one bit that you’re gay, but some people will look at you differently. Some people won’t want to be friends with you, or will treat you like some kind of zoo animal to be stared at, or just won’t know what to say to you and it will be all awkward. There are people who are just not used to it, especially freshmen from places like, well, Ohio for instance, and it takes them a while to get comfortable. And there are other people who think being gay is morally wrong, and they usually won’t speak up, but they’ll avoid you. So I don’t want to sit here and tell you that your life won’t be affected at all by coming out, because that wouldn’t be true. There are certain disadvantages, even here. But there are advantages, too. Not having to act all the time. Being able to just be yourself and not worry about who is going to find out. It’s a relief. At least, for me it is. Not that I was ever able to really pass, I mean, just look at me.”

Blaine grinned. “You are kind of obvious. Your voice, especially.”

“Yeah. Well.”

“It actually makes your lectures way more entertaining to listen to,” Blaine said.

“Um, thanks.” Kurt shifted in his chair. “But hey, listen, you don’t have to decide all at once, about coming out. I mean, you don’t have to go stand on a table in the cafeteria and shout, ‘I’m gay’ to the entire student body. You can just be yourself, and answer truthfully if anyone brings it up. Or mention an ex-boyfriend, or that you think some actor is hot, or something like that, slip it into conversation. It makes it less of a big deal for people. Or you could just keep it quiet, like you did at your high school, until you find a guy you’re attracted to and decide whether it’s worth telling him.” Kurt froze. He was suddenly hit with the thought that perhaps that was exactly what Blaine had done. The boy was looking away, not meeting his eyes.

“Blaine?” Kurt asked carefully. “Why did you decide to come talk to me about this? Half the faculty has Safe Space signs on their doors, not to mention all the deans and the guidance counselors and your resident adviser and the five different LGBTQ student groups. Why talk to your history professor?”

“I don’t know,” Blaine mumbled. “I guess you just seemed … approachable. Why are there five different LGBTQ groups, anyway?”

“Oh, do not get me started on the internal politics of it,” Kurt groaned. “One of them asked me to be their faculty adviser last year and I agreed without understanding that this would make me the target of some kind of political shitstorm, and I ended up quitting. Way too complicated for me.”

Blaine laughed. “I guess I should figure that out before joining any of them, then.”

“Yeah, couldn’t hurt,” Kurt said. “Look, if you have any more questions, feel free to stop by and talk. Anytime. Really.”

Blaine stood up to leave. “Thank you. This has been helpful.”

“Good luck, Blaine. I hope you figure things out for yourself.”

Kurt shook his head in amusement after Blaine walked out the door. The boy was so incredibly trusting, even after all he’d been through in high school. There was something so vulnerable and young about him, and yet he approached the issue he was facing maturely, like an adult, gathering advice and opinions before making a decision about whether to come out at college. Kurt was intrigued by this kid. He hoped they’d have the chance to talk again. He wanted to learn more about this Blaine. And besides, he was quite nice to look at, too.

* * *

“Mike and Tina are finally hooking up,” Blaine said glumly when Rachel opened the door to her room.

“Honestly, I can’t believe it took them this long,” Rachel said. “How did you find out?”

“I kind of walked in on them just now,” Blaine said uncomfortably, sitting down on Rachel’s bed and staring at the floor. “I mean, they were fully dressed, but still. Yuck.”

“That’s not so bad, is it?” Rachel said, sitting down beside him and throwing a comforting arm around his shoulders. “Just like a kissing scene in a movie. Nothing traumatic.”

“It’s way worse when it’s your friends,” Blaine said.

“I guess so,” Rachel said. “And way better when it’s yourself.” She placed her other hand on his thigh.

Blaine snorted. “Like that’s ever going to happen. Not for me.”

“Why not?” Rachel asked, surprised. “You’re a very attractive guy. All the girls think so. I’m sure you could find … someone.” Her hand moved gently up and down his thigh, tracing an arc toward the sensitive inner side.

Blaine’s breath caught at the pleasurable sensation. “Oh…” It was almost a moan, and Rachel smiled with delight. Then his eyes widened as he realized the touch hadn’t been by accident. “Oh!” He leapt up and backed away a few steps. “Rachel, no, I’m sorry, I’m not … not interested in that.” He saw her hurt look. “It’s not you, I promise, it’s me.” Damn, that sounds lame, he thought to himself.

Rachel glared at him. “Don’t lie to me. Ten seconds ago you were whining that you’ll never find a girlfriend, and now you’re saying that you don’t want me because of you, not me? Obviously you’re just not attracted to me. That’s fine, you don’t have to be, but don’t stand there and lie to my face about it.”

Blaine racked his brain for a way out of the situation without hurting Rachel’s feelings and found just one: the truth. He braced himself for whatever was to come. “Rachel, I’m gay.”

Her face softened. “Oh. That’s too bad.” 

Tears stung in Blaine’s eyes. 

“Oh my god, no, no!” Rachel clapped a hand over her mouth and then stood up and hugged him. “I meant, too bad for me. It’s totally fine that you’re gay. I support that entirely. I have two gay dads, you know.”

“I … didn’t know.” Blaine sat back down, shaken by the whirlwind of emotions coursing through him. “I’m … I haven’t told many people at all. About me. Just one other person here at college, actually.”

“Was it Mike?” Rachel asked.

“Uh, no,” Blaine said.

Rachel’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, now I’m curious. Was it a guy you like? Oh my gosh, did he reject you and that’s why you’re all depressed about finding someone?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Blaine said. I should learn to keep my mouth shut, he thought. “It was Professor Hummel.” Mouth. Shut. Damn.

“Okay, I am going to need this full story,” Rachel said excitedly. 

“Can’t I just do my math homework?” Blaine whined.

“No.”

Blaine realized that he couldn’t win this one, certainly not in his current mental state, so he gave a brief description of his encounter with Professor Hummel earlier that day. Rachel saw right through him, somehow.

“Oh my gosh, you have a crush on him!”

“I do not!” The hot red blush covering Blaine’s face completely gave him away.

“You should go after him!” Rachel said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Blaine said. “Nothing would ever come of it. He’s a professor and I’m in his class. And I’ve got to be way too young for him, regardless.”

“So what?” Rachel said. “Sure, probably nothing will end up happening. But that makes it an excellent opportunity to practice your flirting skills with no consequences. See if you can make him attracted to you. It’s a challenge.”

“Rachel, you give the world’s worst advice,” Blaine said. But somehow, he couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility.