“Do you know what your room number is?”

It took at least a full minute for Blaine to realize that the question had, quite obviously, been directed towards him. Flushing slightly, he murmured something unintelligible under his breath and then knelt down on the ground to rummage through his bright-blue backpack.

Cooper stared down at him and raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure that you’re going to be okay here, Blaine?”

“I’m absolutely fine,” Blaine replied, not bothering to look up from his bag.

His brother was silent for all of five seconds. “Shouldn’t you have already looked at your roommate assignment, Blaine?” Cooper asked innocently. “I know that you got it in the mail at least two weeks ago.”

Blaine pursed his lips. “I did, yes.”

“So, why haven’t you bothered to –”

Blaine fiddled uselessly with his backpack, eyes fixated firmly on the ground. “I don’t think that I should be here, Cooper.”

“What do you mean?” his brother asked, crouching down so that he could see Blaine’s face.

“I’m just nervous, I guess.” Blaine shrugged helplessly. “I haven’t been to a public school in years. What if this is just like Westerville all over again? There is no zero tolerance bullying policy here to protect me, Cooper. And what if I can’t keep up with my classes? What if I don’t make any friends? What if my roommate is homophobic? What if –”

Cooper pressed his free hand against his younger brother’s mouth, silencing him. “Please calm down before you stare hyperventilating or something, Blaine.”

He took a deep breath.

His brother stared at him for a good minute. “I think you’re just scared, which is entirely normal,” Cooper said finally. “Am I right?”

Blaine hesitated, and then nodded, a bit embarrassed by his behavior.

Cooper gave him a warm smile. “Well, don’t panic. If worse comes to worse, you have your car, and you can always drive home for a weekend.”

“Okay, yeah,” Blaine replied. “I can do that.”

“As far as the bullying issue is concerned, I’m sure that they have some sort of bullying policy here. Even if it isn’t a zero tolerance one,” Cooper continued. “What you need to do, Blaine, is check the student handbook to see what those policies are, that way you know what to do if something does happen.”

He nodded.

“Now, as far as everything else goes, you’ll be fine,” Cooper continued. “I’m sure that you will make friends, and if your roommate is a homophobic dick, you can always talk to Resident Life, or to your RA, and switch, okay?”

“Yeah,” Blaine said, smiling a bit. “You’re right. I’m just being stupid.”

Cooper shook his head. “You aren’t being stupid, Blaine. It’s entirely normal to be nervous about going away to college. Now, do you have the paper with your room assignment?”

Blaine held out a small, rumpled sheet of paper, a sheepish look on his face. “I’m sorry it’s so messed up. I sort of just shoved it in there and then shoved about six-hundred other things on top of it.”

Cooper rolled his eyes and opened the paper, smoothing it out as he read. “It says that you’ll be living in 9001 Weiler Hall.”

“The ninth floor?” Blaine echoed, horrified.

“I wouldn’t be complaining if I were you,” Cooper replied, still scanning through the paper. “According to this, Weiler apparently has eighteen floors in total. It could be much, much worse.”

Blaine made a face at that. What sort of soulless bastards built a dormitory with eighteen floors?

“What else does the paper say?”

“Most of it is rules for living in the dorms,” Cooper replied. “Stuff regarding curfews, alcohol policies, policies for RA/student relationships, and so on.”

Blaine hummed a bit, not entirely paying attention. “What does it say specifically about those things?”

“Curfew is midnight during the week for freshman, and two in the morning on weekends. This is a dry campus, as I’m sure you already knew when you applied, so alcohol is prohibited no matter how old a student is. You are going to regret that decision so much when you turn twenty-one, Blainers,” Cooper murmured. “Resident Assistants are not allowed to be in a relationship with one of their residents, as it is considered ‘an abuse of power.’ They can be fired immediately for breaking that rule.”

“That seems a bit extreme,” Blaine said. “Firing them, I mean. Why not simply reassign them to a different building or floor?”

Cooper shrugged. “Want me to tell you who your roommate is?”

“Well, I’m going to find out in about ten minutes anyway, so you might as well.”

“No need to sound so excited, Blainers.”

Blaine cast his brother an annoyed look. “I think that I liked you more when you were all supportive,” he said. “You were far less annoying when you were busy comforting me.”

Cooper grinned.

About a minute passed in complete silence – Blaine knew his brother well enough to know that Cooper was probably attempting to stall for dramatic effect – before he finally lost his patience.

“Are you going to tell me or not?”

“His name is Sam Evans,” Cooper said finally. “According to this, he is a computer science major.”

“Really?”

His brother nodded. “You’re majoring in architecture, aren’t you, Blaine? That’s a very strange combination.”

Before Blaine had an opportunity to respond, a new voice cut in. “They do that – matching up unrelated majors, I mean – to guarantee that students interact with people outside of their academic departments,” the voice said briskly. “I can assure you, however, that every effort is made to ensure that matches are compatible; after all, why else would you be forced to fill out a six-page questionnaire?”

The two brothers turned and found themselves face-to-face with one of the most beautiful boys that Blaine had ever seen.

“I’m sorry,” the boy apologized suddenly, a slightly guarded expression spreading across his face. “That was rather rude, cutting in like that. I was just walking past and overheard your roommate’s name, and I couldn’t resist.”

“Do you know him?” Cooper asked.

“Sam? Yes, we went to high school together,” the boy replied. “I graduated a year before him, though. He’s a very good friend of mine…we shared a few classes, and we competed in glee club together.”

Blaine stared at the boy with wide eyes. “Is he – is he nice?”

The boy turned to look at Blaine, and something in his eyes seemed to soften when he realized how nervous and borderline-terrified Blaine was.

“Sam is one of the nicest and most accepting people I know,” the boy said honestly. “You are lucky to have him as a roommate. I was…not so lucky last year. My previous roommate was a tad bit homophobic. Luckily, I don’t have to worry about roommates anymore.”

“Why not?”

The boy blinked at them for a moment, confused, and then smiled suddenly. “I forgot to introduce myself, didn’t I?” he said sheepishly, blushing. He took a step forward and held his hand out towards Blaine. “My name is Kurt Hummel. I’m a Sophomore, and if you’ll be living on the ninth floor of Weiler Hall, then I’ll be your RA.”

Blaine took Kurt’s hand, and was surprised at how soft it was.

“My name is Blaine Anderson,” he said cheerfully, smiling widely at the other boy as they shook hands. “And this is my older brother, Cooper.”

“Well, Blaine Anderson, would you and your brother like some help with moving your things in?” Kurt asked. “I think that Sam is already up there. I could introduce you, if you want?”

Blaine smiled. “I would really, really appreciate that.”

“I’ll show you to the car,” Cooper said to Kurt, motioning for him to follow.

Cooper and Kurt quickly disappeared into the parking lot. Blaine did not follow right away, though, as he was far too preoccupied with staring stupidly at where Kurt had been standing only seconds earlier, an equally dumb smile plastered across his face.

That smile quickly faded, however, when Blaine suddenly recalled the words that Cooper had spoken earlier about Resident Assistants being forbidden from engaging in relationships with their residents.

He was so, so fucked.