The first day back to school, to senior year, is spent catching up on what happened over the summer. It doesn't matter if they've seen one another every day during summer vacation and heard all the stories before, they have to retell them. Mostly in an even grander fashion.

Dean convinces Roman to join him out on the smoker's patio in the back of the school, since he knows Randy will be there, too. Dean lights up his first cigarette of the school year and leans back against the wall. It's only a couple minutes later that Randy shows up. Randy grins at the sight of his friends, one of the few he hasn't seen for a while now. He's been on vacation the past couple weeks.

"Can I bum a smoke?" Randy asks.

"Hello to you, too," Dean greets, tossing his pack and lighter at Randy.

Randy lights his own cigarette and gives Dean his stuff back before asking, "How are you two doin'?"

"Fine," Dean replies.

"I'm good," Roman says. "How was your trip?" They're all really curious. Randy goes to the beach for a few weeks every year, and his stories are always fun to listen to. Neither of them know just how true the stories are, but it makes them no less enjoyable.

Randy gets this smile on his face as he thinks back to his beach vacation. "Oh, it was a hell of a trip this year."

"Now tell me, what, or who, rather, did you do this year?"

"Her name was Felicia, she was tall with long brown hair and bright blue eyes. She was there on vacation with her parents and her brothers, but we were able to sneak off plenty. Did I mention that she's in college?"

"No way, man," Dean says. "No way you got with a college girl."

Randy shrugs and winks, taking a drag off his cigarette. "I may have told her that I'm a senior, which isn't a lie."

"Did you tell her you were a senior in high school?" Roman asks.

"I may have said I was in college."

"And she believed you? With that babyface?" Dean teases.

"It's the height," Randy tells him. "Maybe if you grew a few more inches you'd understand."

Dean rolls his eyes and flicks the cigarette from Randy's mouth.

"You do anything else besides roll around in the sand with this girl?" Roman asks, amused at the immaturity of his friends.

"Sure," Randy says as he stomps out the cigarette Dean unceremoniously flicked to the ground. "There's always lots of barbeques and ice cream and picking up tacky souvenirs from the beach shops. Followed by rolling around in the sand with the girl."

The school bell rings, but they take their time packing things up. Dean rolls his pack of cigarettes up in his sleeve and tucks his lighter in his pocket. It's with great reluctance that they make their way into the school.

They're late to homeroom, but none of them actually care. Their teachers are not amused. Nor are they at all surprised. They know exactly who the troublemaking seniors are.

Dean slips into the empty seat in his homeroom class that he knows well by this point, grinning at his teacher. She's still not amused. After attendance is taken and paperwork is passed out, the announcements come on. No one really pays attention to them, aside from the handful of brownnosers and teachers' pets scattered throughout his homeroom.

It's not long before there's a bell ringing and everyone gets up and moves onto their real first class. Dean's first class ends up being less than thrilling. And mildly awkward, as he ends up having to sit next to his old girl, Renee. They broke up the end of last year, when she told him she wanted to be with someone who was going to make something out of their life. She then started dating the British exchange student, Wade Barrett.

They do their best to not so much as acknowledge one another, as they hadn't actually spoken since the day she gave his ring back to him.

When the bell rings again signaling the end of class, Dean picks up his stuff and slowly meanders down the hall, not actually giving a shit if he makes it to class on time. He passes Roman in the hallway, giving him a little nod. And that's when he's literally running into another student. "Fuck, watch where you're going," Dean mutters.

"Sorry," the kid says. He lowers the paper he had been holding up in front of his face as he wandered the halls. "I have no idea where I'm going."

Dean is left rather breathless when that paper is lowered. He's into chicks, yeah, but at the same time, he always thought other guys were good looking. He doesn't think of himself as a queer or anything, but sometimes he can't deny the fact that he's had an attraction to men. And right now, he's having one of those moments. He's never seen this kid before, but he doesn't think he can be a freshman. "Here, let me look," he says gesturing for the guy to give him his paper, which he's assuming is his schedule. He takes a look and, yeah, there's no way he's a freshman with the classes he's taking. "You're going next door to where I'm going."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And you're headed in the wrong direction."

"But I just came from that way."

"I think they redid the number system, or something," Dean tells him. "They're all kinda weird up on this floor. Follow me."

"Thank you," he says, walking in step with Dean. "Uh, I'm Seth, by the way."

Dean turns his head to look at Seth. It's a good name. "Dean." They walk a little bit longer, still going once the bell rings, taking a turn down a hallway and then he stops a couple doors down. "Here we are."

"I swear I walked right past here. Thank you, Dean," Seth says, smiling at him. "Sorry if I made you late to class."

"Would probably have shown up to it later if I hadn't shown you around," Dean replies with a little grin.

Seth hadn't missed the square pack obvious in Dean's shirt sleeve. "Troublemaker, huh? Guess I know who I need to stay away from." Dean is pretty sure that Seth just winked at him. "Thanks again," he adds before finally going into the classroom. Dean hears him apologizing profusely to the teacher about getting lost, since he's new. And that explains why Dean had never met him before.

So, now that he's right next to the class he's supposed to be in, he figures he might as well go to it. The teacher looks at him quite sternly when he enters the room five minutes late, but he shrugs and tells her, "Was helping out the new kid find his class."

The class seems to drag on and on, and that's why Dean's never in class. He can't sit still and listen to people talk for so long. He much prefers his technical classes, where he can actually do shit, as opposed to sitting there twiddling his thumbs.

He's the first out the door when the bell rings. Though he takes his sweet time walking down to the next door classroom, waiting for Seth to come out. "Hey," he greets when he sees him walking out.

"Hey."

"Thought I might help ya get to your next class," Dean tells him.

"You the official school tour guide?" Seth asks him, gladly handing over his schedule.

"Right, like I'd help this school do shit," he replies, even as he's reading over Seth's classes. "Come on, this time you're actually with me in a class."

"Really? That mean you'll show up to it on time?"

Dean shrugs. "We'll see. I can't make promises like that."

"Fair enough," Seth says. He never skipped a lot at his old school, but he did once in a while. "You'll have to show me all the good places to go when you skip outta here."

"I know 'em all."

"I don't doubt that."

"We're here," Dean tells him, and Seth realizes he never actually paid attention to where he was walking, as he was just going wherever Dean went. He can't retrace their steps if he tried, as they somehow ended up on the second floor of the building. He really doesn't even remember going downstairs.

As it turns out, Roman is in the class, too. He's a bit surprised to see Dean come in with a new guy in tow. They all sit near one another, before the teacher can come in and assign them seats in alphabetical order.

"Hey," Roman greets.

"Hey," Dean returns. He looks to Seth and then says, "Seth, this is Roman, Roman this is Seth. I ran into him before last class. Physically ran into him," he adds. "He got lost."

Roman quirks an eyebrow. "And you actually went out of your way to help the poor guy? Are you turning over a new leaf?"

"Fuck off," Dean mutters.

"That's a no, then," Roman says. "You just move here?"

"Yeah. My dad's in the navy, so we move around a lot. This is my fifth high school in four years. Naturally, every one is laid out differently." He runs a hand through his slicked back hair, then twirls the front part around his index finger, curling it just right.

Dean suddenly has the urge to reach out and touch Seth's hair, even though it's the same style as Roman's, the same style as most every guy in the school. It's not like his own, though, his own hair is a dirty blonde mop that he just can't be bothered to style. He's actually kind of glad the bell rings and he ends up on a separate side of the classroom than Seth. He's a bit bummed that Roman gets to sit right in front of Seth, though.

The class is like any other English class, or any class Dean's ever attended in general. It's dull and tedious and Dean really doesn't want to be there.

When the bell rings, Dean waits outside for Roman and Seth. "I got gym next, so, I'm skippin' out."

"On the first day?" Roman asks, though he's not surprised.

"I need a smoke, anyway," Dean replies with a shrug. "But I can show you to your next class, if you want," he offers to Seth.

"Oh, uh, sure, yeah." He pulls the folded up paper from his pocket, quickly unfolds it and tries to smooth it out before handing it to Dean.

"Ok, you go back up this set of stairs," he says, pointing behind him, "then take a left and go all the way to the end of the hall."

"For someone who's never in class, you sure know your way around the school," Seth says as he takes his schedule back.

"Gotta know the best ways to get out without getting caught," Dean replies with a grin. "I'll see you two later?"

"Yeah," Roman replies at the same time as Seth.

With that, the three go their separate ways. Dean slips out behind the school and finds Randy there, too, cigarette already dangling from his lips. "Fancy seein' you here."

Randy turns his head and smirks. "Dean, what brings you out here?"

Dean pulls out his lighter and grabs his pack of smokes. "Gym."

Randy laughs. "You, too, huh?"

"Yeah." He takes a deep drag off his cigarette and leans back against the wall. He might go to gym class tomorrow, if he feels like it, but right then, he doesn't feel like it. The bell rings way too quickly. The time spent behind the school goes by way faster than if he'd actually been in a class, and all he did the whole time was talk with Randy and smoke his way through a quarter of his pack. "Guess I better get back inside," Dean says with great reluctance.

Sighing, Randy has to agree with him and the two of them head inside. They part on the second floor, where Randy has his class. Dean continues onto the third floor and finds his science classroom. He hates science, especially since this will be the second time he's taking chemistry. All he can think the entire class is that he hopes Seth was able to find his classroom ok.

And then he thinks that he's thinking about Seth way too much. Even before he started with Renee, he didn't think about her this often, and he'd been into her since freshman year. He only just met Seth. It's their first day back to school. He hardly knows the guy, yet he's laying the charm on thick. He's fucked.

The rest of the week goes by pretty slowly, as far as Dean is concerned. He passes Seth just before the last class of the day, and asks if he wants to go to the burger joint downtown after school. "Sure," Seth answers, "but I got no idea where it is."

"Don't worry about it," Dean says, grinning. "Meet me out front after school."

"Sure thing," Seth replies with a smile of his own.

Dean makes a quick stop at his locker, throwing in all the school books he acquired that day so he wouldn't have to look at them again til the end of the year. Then, he heads downstairs and sits on the radiator to wait.

"Aren't you gonna miss your bus?" Roman asks when he sees Dean standing around.

"Not taking the bus today," Dean answers.

"Catch a ride from someone?"

"Nah, I'm going to Frosty's."

Roman quirked a brow. "Oh yeah? Did you and Renee get back together?"

"She can get bent," Dean mutters. "I'm going with Seth."

Roman's other brow joins the first. "Really?"

"What?" Dean asks.

"Are you two gonna share a milkshake, too?"

"The hell's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Roman says with a shrug. It's then that his own girl, who he's been going steady with for the past two years now, shows up and wraps her hands around Roman's arm. "Have fun tonight," he adds as he heads off to the locker rooms with her so they can prepare for football and cheerleading practice.

Dean sees Randy pass him, walking right out to the parking lot, and he realizes that he wants a car more than ever now. Even going to the drive-in theatre he's had to go with Roman or Randy. He and Renee had to double date at the movies with Roman and his girl since he didn't have a car of his own.

"Dean," Seth says for the second time before he finally gets the other man to look at him. "You look deep in thought."

"I need a car," Dean replies.

"I wish I had a car of my own," Seth says as he begins walking with Dean. "All I have is my bike."

"Do you bike to school?" Dean asks.

"Yeah, you?"

"I'm stuck on the bus," he answers.

"So, uh, how do we get to this burger joint?" Seth asks as he unlocks his bike from the rack.

"I usually just walk, but if you've got a bike, I can ride on your handlebars," Dean suggests.

"Sure, as long as you tell me which way to go."

Dean guides Seth to Frosty's without a hitch, can probably tell him how to get there blindfolded. "They're real good. Do you like milkshakes?"

"What kind of heathen doesn't?" Seth asks in return as he locks his bike back up.

"Good question." Dean opens the door, then holds it for Seth. "I'm a fan of strawberry."

"Thanks. I'm more of a chocolate guy, myself," Seth says. They both head inside and Seth glances up at the menu boards behind the registers. "What do you suggest?"

"All their food is good, but I like the cheeseburgers. And strawberry milkshakes," he adds.

"Ok, that's what I'll get, too. Only I'll get the chocolate milkshake." They order and are given a number before sitting down at a booth. "So, is this your favorite hangout?" Seth asks.

"One of 'em. They've got good food and they've got cheap food. And the best milkshakes in town. Can't go wrong with that."

"Not at all," Seth agrees. Just looking around he can see several of his fellow students, so it's clearly a popular place. "I'm just surprised you'd rather come here with me instead of your girl on a Friday night."

"Don't have a girl anymore," he tells Seth. "Had a girl, we went together a couple months, then she broke things off to go with a British guy."

"That's shitty. Sorry about that, man."

Dean just shrugs it off. "Things happen for a reason, right?"

"True," Seth says.

Their milkshakes are brought over to them, the waitress telling them it'll be a few more minutes on the food.

"So, how is it?" Dean asks once Seth takes a sip.

Seth gives an approving nod. "This is really good."

"Told you," Dean says, grinning as he takes a sip of his own. "So, how was your first week at the shithole we call a high school?" Dean then asks.

"It's actually a really nice school, better than some I've been to."

Right, because Seth has been to four different high schools, and he's only just starting his senior year. And that realization has Dean wondering. "Are you gonna be moving again?"

"I hope not. I'd like to go a whole year at one school. What a novel idea, attending one single school for the whole school year," Seth says, stabbing his straw into his shake. "If I hadn't run into you on Monday and you hadn't been, ya know, nice enough to show me around, I probably wouldn't have any…" he doesn't know if he should call Dean a friend, because he hasn't really had any true friends since he was in junior high, "any friends at all."

"Even I have friends, and I'm a shithead most of the time," Dean says. "I mean, I don't have many, but they don't just tolerate my being a shithead, they actually like me for it. How would you not have friends?"

"I don't like getting close to people, just to up and move away." He laughs and shakes his head. "I've never even dated since I didn't want to just up and leave on a moment's notice."

Their burgers are brought over to them, and they smell so good, both boys hungry after a long day at school.

Dean takes the bun off and dumps some ketchup onto his burger. "Now, I don't believe that. You never went with a girl because you were worried about being a heartbreaker?" He shakes his head. "No way."

"The only time I didn't move around was in junior high. That was two years in the same school, and in seventh grade, we were all new to the school. I'd been told we'd be there for a while, so I thought maybe I could make some friends. I was in that school district until halfway through freshman year. I didn't want that to happen again." Seth takes a big bite out of his burger, because he needs some time. He's allowing himself to get close to Dean and he hates knowing that he could have to pack up and go anytime in the near future. He never told anyone else at his last schools about his worries, because he never let himself be that friendly with anyone. And now he's confessing things to Dean he didn't think he'd tell anyone.

Dean doesn't know what to say, either. So, he takes a bite, as well. With his mouth full, he mumbles, "Good, right?" and gives a thumbs up.

Seth grins and nods, returning the thumbs up.

Once they finish up their food, they talk a little more about school. How Seth's enjoying his classes, whereas Dean never enjoys classes. "I'm glad I ran into you."

"Me, too," Dean admits. "Though, I thought for sure you were actually gonna avoid me." When Seth cocks his head slightly, a confused expression on his face, he elaborates, "You said you stayed away from the bad boy types."

"What can I say?" Seth replies with a grin. He really does like Dean, and the whole bad boy look really is quite appealing. Though, he can't say that directly to Dean, not unless he wants to get punched in the face and shunned by the guy. "You were just a really helpful bad boy."

"Sucks I missed my window of opportunity to show you the fourth floor swimming pool."

"I'll have you know that I was told before arriving to not believe anyone trying to sell you a pass to the swimming pool. Do people actually buy that?"

"You'd be surprised."

They both slide out of the booth and stand, heading to the door. "How are you gonna get home?" Seth asks, opening the door and seeing the bike stand.

"I can walk. The real question here is do you know how to get home from here?" Dean asks.

"I have no clue," Seth answers. He hasn't been through this part of the city before, and while he thinks he has a vague idea of what general direction he needs to head in, he's not totally sure. Before starting school, his father drove him there and he paid attention to every detail so he'd know how to get there on his bike. School is the only place he knows how to get to and home from.

"Good things you're friends with me, then. I know every street in the city."

Seth tells him his address and Dean discovers that Seth only lives a couple minutes from his apartment complex. "You're not that far from me," he tells him. "Let me ride on your handlebars again and I'll show you."

"Fair enough," Seth replies.

They make it to Seth's house in good time. "Told you I know my way around," Dean says, hopping off the bike.

"Good thing." He gets off his bike to walk it up the driveway. "I'll see you Monday?"

"Yeah," Dean answers with a grin. "Before school, me, Randy and Roman go to the smoker's patio."

Seth smiles back. "I might just show up." He watches Dean as he walks off, then bends down to pull open the garage door. He walks his bike inside and sets it off to the side before heading in. His mother gives him a good staredown once he gets inside, asking where he's been. "I was with Dean. We went to this burger joint, Frosty's, after school. He knows this city like the back of his hand, don't worry."

She eases up on him after that. It's been so long since he's gone out with a friend. Still, her son is a good kid, and she's guessing it was Dean on the bike, and from the looks of him, he's probably not the greatest influence. "Just be careful, ok?"

"I know, Mom. I can handle myself." He gives her a reassuring smile, though even he doesn't really know what he's in for getting to know Dean Ambrose.

"I think I need to get a car," Dean says. It's Monday morning, and he's got a few minutes before the first bell rings. He lights up a cigarette and leans against the wall.

"You've been saying that for a while," Roman replies.

"You shoulda got one last year when you were still going with Renee. Maybe then you would have at least gotten some pussy," Randy says before taking a drag off his own cigarette.

"Hey, fuck you."

"I know someone who's selling a beater," Roman pipes up before his two friends start really going at it.

"Really?" Dean asks.

"Yeah. It's only a few years old, I guess, but it's beat to shit. They bought a new car and just wanna get this one off their hands."

"I want it." Dean might not have a car of his own, but he's very mechanically inclined. He's worked in a garage for a couple years now and he's been saving up every penny he earns. And now might just be his opportunity. He's never met a car he can't fix. If this is going to be his car, he's going to put his all into it.

"I'll see if my dad can talk to him, figure out a time to meet him?"

"Yeah, do that."

"Hey?" comes a voice from behind them, sounding very unsure.

"Seth, didn't think you'd show up," Dean greets, grinning.

"Wasn't really sure where this place was," he admits.

He sees Roman raising an eyebrow at him. Obviously Dean told Seth where he hangs out every morning. And every lunch break. And sometimesduring school. And a lot of times after school. He just shrugs. "Well, you found it." He brings his smoke up to his lips and takes a drag. "Want one?"

Seth shakes his head. "No, thank you."

The bell rings shortly after Seth arrives, having taken so long to get there. Dean groans, not wanting to go to class. Roman at least has a reason to keep up his grades, as he's the only jock in their little group. He just doesn't hang out with the jocks, as he and Dean had been friends since the first day of junior high, even though Roman is from a very well off family and Dean is about as far opposite as a person can get. So, even when he made first string on the football team his freshman year, he never ditched Dean in favor of the letterman jacket jocks. All the more reason he loves Roman like the brother he never had.

As they walk inside, Dean falls into step besides Seth as Randy and Roman walk ahead of them. "You know your way around this school by now?"

"For the most part. I know how to get to where I need to go."

"Just wait til next semester," Dean teases.

"As long as next semester I'm still here, it hopefully won't be an issue."

Right. Because Seth can be out of his life any day if his dad has to up and move again. "Oh, yeah."

Seth can actually hear the disappointment in Dean's voice. "Hey, I don't know if I'll be moving. For all I know, my dad will spend the next ten years here. Believe me, I don't want to move again. I'm pretty sick of it." He's also letting himself get close to people, which he never intended to do, and the more time he spends with Dean, the less he wants to go anywhere else.