Timeframe: early season 3
Chapter summary: Sebastian Smythe arrives at Dalton fresh out of Paris, and hates every second of it.

"Be careful with my stuff," Sebastian scolded half-heartedly as he watched the taxi driver put his suitcase down on the gravel of the Dalton Academy driveway.

The man paid him no heed and rounded the car, getting back into the driver's seat and starting the engine without a word. His fare had been paid for beforehand, so being polite would not earn him an extra tip.

Sebastian watched him go and scowled at the red taillights disappearing into the dark before turning to face the large mansion. Here it was. Dalton Academy for Boys.

It had cost his mother a lot of tears to persuade his father to enroll him here instead of military school, and yet Sebastian already hated the look of it. It looked like an asylum.

He sighed and bent down awkwardly to pick up his suitcase. His ribs hurt. On his last night in Paris, as a final act of defiance, he had gotten a tattoo there.

Negligence and a chafing night on the plane had caused it to get infected. It felt like someone had kicked him in the chest- or maybe that was just heartache , Sebastian thought, and grimaced.

Fuck that. He didn't do sentimentality.

He straightened and started towards the entrance. A boys-only boarding school in fucking Ohio. It didn't get more provincial than that.

He sighed. The Dean had invited him and his parents for the intake meeting, but his father was busy and his mother had been unable to deal with the stress, so they had kept goodbyes formal and short. He had hardly seen them since he had flown back from Paris, anyway.

Unwilling to adjust to Ohio's time zone (because even that was provincial), Sebastian had prolonged his jet-lag by getting up in the middle of the night when everyone was in bed and falling asleep during the day, long before his father came home from the office.

He was tired now too. He had slept in the taxi, but it was 5 am in Europe, almost time to get up. He'd probably start feeling more awake soon.

"It's a shame we couldn't get your academic record in time for your transfer," the Dean remarked, looking down at the paperwork on his desk before glancing at the boy sitting across from him. "One would think that a fine school such as the Louis le Grand would manage to arrange that, even if they are in Europe. But I suppose the French are very laissez-faire about it," he joked.

Sebastian resisted the urge to roll his eyes. This was the second lame French reference the man had made in five minutes.

It didn't surprise him that his record wasn't there- he didn't exactly have much of a record at Louis. He hadn't attended many of the classes. His father would have made sure Dalton didn't know that- they'd hardly take him in if they knew he had been expelled. He wondered what strings his dad had pulled.

"You know, your dad and I go way back. Edward's an old friend of mine."

Ah. That explained it. Such a good friend of his dad's, that Sebastian had never heard the man's name, or the name of the school he ran, let alone seen him on any of the social networking parties his father held during the year. More likely, his father had dirt on him- state attorneys knew a lot about a lot of people. While the Dean blabbed on about fishing trips and their old school's rowing team, Sebastian let his mind wander and considered that the guy could be guilty of.

Embezzlement? Pedophilia?

He smiled politely at the appropriate moments and wondered if the man had been fiddling with his students. Maybe some of them used it to get themselves out of detention? It would come in handy to get confirmation on that. Not that he'd consider it- but just in case. Anything would be better than military school.

"...I'm sure you'll get along. Thaddeus Ashford is one of our model students. We usually room up our new students with established Daltonians, to help them get settled in. Just attach yourself to him and they'll show you around. Here's your key."

Sebastian blinked, and he leaned over too quickly to take the key. His head spun a little and the movement shot a spark of pain through his ribs. Wait- what had the guy said? He was sharing a room? God, what were the odds that this guy was a complete douche?

Sebastian gave the blazer kid a bland look after the boy had brought his charge to room 203. He had been telling Sebastian some details about the school building that Sebastian had mostly ignored. It was a pretentious school in Ohio. What could possibly be so interesting about it?

Now, the student seemed to be waiting for something. What was his name again? Trevor? Trent?

"Merci," Sebastian mumbled vaguely, and kept it at that until the boy realized he wasn't going to be invited in and trotted off.

Sebastian sighed. It was 6 am in real time, what did anyone expect from him? In Paris, he'd coming home from a club round about now, maybe taking a d-tour to stop by the bakery off campus to flirt with the baker's son to score some free croissants.

But he wasn't in Paris right now. He was at Dalton. Sebastian sighed. In Paris...life went on without him.

Sebastian opened the door with his key and dragged his suitcase inside. He looked up as he saw movement in the corner of his eye.

A dark-haired boy was sitting at one of the two desks, writing down something in a leather-bound notebook. Over his desk, he had put up a poster of two bare-chested guys fencing. Huh. So the clichés about boarding school were actually true? That should make his stay a bit more interesting, at least.

Sebastian briefly glanced over the boy as he considered his candidacy. No, he was definitely too preppy. In fact, he looked plain and boring. Sebastian quickly dismissed him as a potential.

The boy looked up at him and cleared his throat. "My name is Thaddeus Ashford," he said formally, got up, and held out his hand.

"Okay," Sebastian replied, sounding a little bored. He let himself fall down on the other bed without taking the boy's hand and took in the room. It was small, but clean enough, though it did smell like the other boy's cologne. "I'm Sebastian Smythe."

"Yes, the Dean told me you would be arriving today. Welcome to Dalton. I'm sure you'll like it here." Thad sounded polite, though if Sebastian had been less tired, he might have noticed the crisp edges to his voice that showed his irritation.

"I find that unlikely," he muttered, and pulled his suitcase closer. He tore off the airplane label that was still on the handle of his suitcase and tossed it on his bed. At the airport, he hadn't wanted to take it off, somehow needing to show everyone where he had traveled from because it said something about him, didn't it? But now that he was here, it seemed like a lame thing to do.

Annoyed with himself, he looked at the two wardrobes and scowled. "So," he started, as if reaching a long overdue conclusion, "which is mine?"

Thad frowned. "The one of the right," he said, his voice growing tighter still. His eye fell to the crumpled label lying on the bed. CDG, FR. He puzzled for a moment, and then decided to give the boy another chance. He was probably extremely jet-lagged. It would explain some of the rudeness.

"Did you fly in directly from Paris?"

Sebastian sighed. Why was prep guy butting into his business? He ignored the fact that the label had served the exact purpose for which he had left it on his suitcase earlier. He shook his head at Thad and rolled his eyes.

"No , because you can't fly directly to Ohio from Paris," he said like he was explaining it to a five year old. "I had a lay-over in New York. The lay was pretty good, but you know, I'm over it."

He smirked. If the boy liked fencing, he might know how to parry.

"That's rather crude, Smythe," Thad replied. "I'd advise against such puns if you want to fit in at Dalton Academy." He took a deep breath and seemed to be steeling himself. "Have you had the tour yet? If we start now, we might make it back before curfew."

Sebastian let himself fall back on his bed dramatically, repressing a wince as his sweater chafed against the bandage over his tattoo. "Ugh! This place has a curfew? Kill me now."

"Smythe. Smythe! Get up or you'll miss first period."

Thad stood over the second bed, fully dressed, looking down on his new roommate. He had already given him time to sleep in while he got breakfast, but he was responsible for him, too- and missing classes on his first day just wouldn't do.

Sebastian groaned. Some idiot's car alarm had gone off earlier or something (seriously, no wonder- Parisians couldn't park to save their lives) , and since then, noises he couldn't place had him drifting in and out of sleep. He had dragged his pillow over his face, vaguely noticing that it smelled strange (more detergent, less cigarette smoke), and was about to sink back into oblivion when someone shook him.

"Hnng...leave me alone," he mumbled, his tired brain unsure if he had spoken French, English or a mixture of both. He reached for the hand on his shoulder and tried to push it off, his movements still foggy and uncoordinated. He didn't understand. He hadn't been to class in weeks, why was it a big deal now? Surely his teachers had long given up trying to make him-

Sebastian froze. They had given up. Which was why he was here now. At Dalton. With a room mate.

Suddenly he remembered the night before; the tour of the place, which he had more or less sleep-walked through trying not to be bored to death as his roommate showed him the closed cafeteria and study hall and tried to get Sebastian interested. He knew it wasn't Thad's fault that he hated the place before he even got there, but he didn't have it in him to make an afford to hide it either. It hadn't been the best of starts.

Sebastian looked up at the boy with bleary eyes, and blinked until he came into focus. "What time is it?"

Thad looked at him with a mixture of disapproval and pity. "Time to shower, I think. A cold one, maybe." He raised an eyebrow and let go of Sebastian's shoulder.

Sebastian looked down on himself. "Don't take it personally," he mumbled, "You woke me from a dream about John Barrowman."

He sat up and rubbed his hand over his face. It had been a good dream, too, - and ugh, the state of his body reminded him that he needed to stay such thoughts until after he emptied his bladder.

"Don't worry. I wouldn't," Thad replied drily. "Now come on. You still have your uniform to pick up before class."

"How about we skip the uniform today and get a coffee before class instead?" Sebastian tried rhetorically, and tried to calculate what time it was in Europe, his sleep-drunken mind failing.

He reached for last night's sweater and pulled it on over his t-shirt. School uniforms. What a joke. His father seemed to think that he needed structure and discipline, and apparently a boarding school just the thing.

The sad fact was, if he pissed too many people off here- which would include his roommate slash guard dog- his father would send him to a real military school- not just one that played dress-up with uniforms. Since that idea was marginally less appealing than sucking it up and doing what people wanted of him here, he would have to do the latter for now.

As they walked down the hall that was slowly filling itself with a sea of uniformed students, Thad started up his guided tour monologue again. It was clearly his way of trying to make small-talk.

Sebastian let it rush over him as white noise while he studied the boys' faces. At an all-boys' school, surely some game was to be had?

As Thad reached the part about some club named for a songbird, Sebastian tuned in again. He didn't know Dalton had a Show Choir. That interested him a lot more than Study Hall.

Sebastian liked singing and dancing. It was something he knew he was good at. As a boy, he had even taking dance classes, for a while thinking he could be the next Fred Astaire. Of course he had stopped that soon enough when it became uncool to be associated with that in school.

In Paris, he had picked up singing again. It wasn't uncool there- people liked it when he sang. Maybe that was the way to get a foot in the door at Dalton, too. If the school choir kids got their own rehearsal room in the school, they had to be pretty important.

"So, how do I get in?" he asked Thad as the boy turned away politely to give him privacy to change into his school uniform. They had picked it up at the registration office and Thad had suggested he'd use a bathroom stall to change so they wouldn't have to go back up to the dorms again.

"You audition, and if the Council likes what you have to offer, you're in."

"Council?" Sebastian asked, doing up the row of buttons on his jacket. It reminded him of the formal dinner jackets his mother used to make him wear and he repressed a shudder.

"The Warbler Council. It's made up out of two Juniors and one upper classman, who are voted for in the beginning of the school year. The upper classman is Head of the Council, though that's just a title. It's basically a triumvirate. They decide on who gets into the Warblers, what songs are performed, and who gets the solos."

"Oh. So what are they like? Probably pretty stuffy types, right, being all important?"

Thad gave him a bland look. "I guess so. I'm Head of the Warbler Council this year."