Marshall was, to be honest, not entirely sure he liked his new roommate. It wasn't that he was homesick and craving the comfort of his own bed or endless discussions with his sister, the professional waitress. Or, alternately, it wasn't that he was a good two thousand miles from home, in a state that he had previously only seen on television shows and in the newspaper, usually accompanied by the words "earthquake" or "forest fire." It was that Kurt seemed so different from the people he had known in high school, albeit a nice enough person. Not that he, himself, wouldn't be classified as "different"; his affinity for dressing like he came out of his father's closet did tend to stand out in suburban Kansas. But the clothes that Kurt wore, Marshall was fairly certain were clothes entirely too far out of his price range.

At least as far as roommates went, Kurt wasn't as bad as some of the horror stories he was hearing from his other friends. Kurt hadn't brought back a girl to have sex with in Marshall's bed; Kurt wasn't borrowing Marshall's shampoo; Kurt wasn't leaving moldy bowls of food around the room, nor was he running up and down the hallway making monkey noises – all things that his friends were having to put up with at that very moment. In fact, Kurt was downright tidy, and other than his vocal warm-ups, he was basically a quiet person with a particular affinity for show tunes playing on the computer. He knew that in the hierarchy of roommates, he could be doing a lot worse.

He glanced at his watch and continued reading his history textbook – he had to have two chapters read for the next morning's class, and Kurt would be back any moment now from receiving the results of the final callback for Voces. Either he would call for a celebration and would be out until late, or he would just want to be alone in their room, banishing Marshall and his laptop to the nearest coffee shop with Wi-Fi.

A short time later, he closed his textbook and shoved it away from him. He leaned back in the chair and tilted his head back, just as Kurt walked in the door and closed it. "Hey," Marshall said, sitting up and turning around to face him. "How did the results go?"

Kurt looked over at Marshall. "I'm an alternate."

"What? Why? I thought you were a shoo-in, you sounded great when you were practicing in here! And you said that your high school glee club went to nationals, didn't you?"

"Yeah, we did," Kurt said. "But this was a 'strong year for male voices' and 'they wish they had spots for everyone.'" Marshall could sense a mixture of bitterness and disappointment. He was a little disappointed himself, for Kurt's sake.

"So what does being an alternate mean, exactly?"

"If anyone drops out or doesn't accept their spot, they'll move down the list until they fill that spot."

"And you could get it."

"Or they could give it to someone without any musical training at all who just happens to be the director's beloved nephew."

Marshall turned back to his desk and began inching the laptop out from against the wall. He sensed that any moment now, Kurt would ask him to leave. He mentally plotted out his coffee order – and prayed that the cute blond barista was working today.

"What are you doing?" Kurt asked.

"I figured you'd want some alone time, so I'll be down at Campus Coffee if you need me," Marshall said, holding up his laptop as to prove a point.

Kurt shook his head. "Uh-uh. Not a chance." He walked over to Marshall, took his laptop from his hands, and placed it gently back on the desk. "You and I are going to go take part in a little thing called shopping."

"Shopping?" Marshall asked, raising an eyebrow. It wasn't that he was unfamiliar with the concept of shopping. Not in the slightest, not when Kate and T had a nasty little habit of running the family's credit cards up to their limit whenever the slightest little thing went wrong for anyone, anywhere. He couldn't quite recall the last excuse they had come up with, but he thought it had something to do with a tornado in Alabama. He had even gone shopping a few times, though most of the time it bored him. There wasn't much going for him, and he could have his mother pick up a new shirt or two when she stopped by Nordstrom's if he needed them.

"They don't have shopping in Kansas?" Kurt asked, seemingly slightly confused by the question.

Marshall let out a laugh. "No, we have shopping in Kansas. I just never did it, unless I was forced to."

"Oh, then you are missing out!" Kurt said, a nearly maniacal glint in his eyes, taking Marshall by the hand and dragging him toward the door. "Come on, let's go. It's time to show you that shopping can be fun."

A few hours and a few hundred dollars later, Kurt and Marshall walked out of the last boutique on the road and headed back toward campus. "Wasn't that fun?" Kurt asked.

"Yeah," Marshall said, watching as a group of students walked past them. "You really didn't have to pay for that shirt I got though."

"Forget about it," Kurt said, waving his hand dismissively. "It's nothing."

"It was seventy-five dollars. That's not 'nothing!'"

"It's a quality shirt. It'll last you a long time, and besides: you looked good in it."

Marshall blushed. "Thanks, Kurt."

"For the shirt or for saying you looked good?"

"Both."

As they walked back to campus, the topic of conversation diverted to a much more neutral topic, Marshall glanced over at Kurt. Sure, maybe the guy liked his show tunes – a lot. And there was something about him that Marshall couldn't quite put his finger on.

But at least he wasn't bringing girls back to the room. That was definitely a step in the right direction.

-to be continued-

Author's Note: I hope everyone has enjoyed the first two chapters! Updates will be roughly every other week, depending on my real life schedule. Coming in the "October" chapters: YouTube leads to Marshall and Kurt each making a revelation of their own, and one of the former New Directions members drops in for a visit.