My Safe Person (X Drake x Hawkins)

{I}

"Aw, seriously? Failed again?" Ace mewled loudly so that the whole class could hear. Then he turned to Drake with that mischievous grin that he used whenever he knew he was going to say something funny. So Drake managed to mentally prepare himself for this shot before it was fired. 

"I thought I aced it!"

Fits of giggles erupted through the room, but were soon cut off by the teacher. 

"Ace, I wouldn't be cracking jokes if I were you. That test was one of the easy ones," Mr. Mihawk said from behind his desk. He fixed his glasses, which usually meant he's going to get into a prolonged monologue about how dumb teenagers are becoming. 

Easy one, huh, Drake thought, staring at the F mark on his paper. 

"Oh, you got an F too! Fist bump!" Ace grinned, his hand extended in expectation. 

Everytime Drake looked at him, he wondered where does this boy's enthusiasm come from. His silky hair tied up in a messy bun with a tiny, pink elastic, a smudge of ketchup and lipstick on his cheek, dark hickey on the skin of his neck and a creased shirt put on backwards - Ace seemed like the happiest person in the world. 

Drake couldn't help but envy him as he returned the fist bump with a slight smile. 

As soon as the bell rang, he was already stuffing his backpack and ready to storm out of the classroom with the rest of the students. 

"Drake." Mr. Mihawk took off his glasses, his hands steepled, fingers tapping together. 

Drake's gut did an instant backflip - the teacher had something in his manner that made him feel uneasy. Getting straight F's in his class might have had something to do with as well, but that wasn't important. 

"Your situation's not good," he said, as if he was a doctor giving him a fatal diagnosis. "Not good at all.  Were you planning to fix it or should I just keep you in this class for another year?" 

A wave of heat washed over his body when his mind went completely blank. Drake imagined his thoughts, colliding with each other and screaming nonsense. He wished he could just dig a hole in the front yard and bury himself in it. 

"Yes, sir," he finally coughed out. "I can fix it. I'll write the next test better." 

Even though Mr. Mihawk never looked pleased, Drake's answer seemed to be at least satisfactory. The man hummed and stacked his papers. 

"Good. Oh, and Drake?" he added when the boy was already halfway through almost jumping out of the room. "Go get some goddamn help, kid." 

Later on, when the whole cafeteria was buzzing with stressed but still lively students, Drake munched half-heartedly on his sandwich, barely listening to Ace's usual rants. His mind kept going back to Mr. Mihawk's words. 

Why would he say something like that? By "help", did he mean a tutor? Or was it-

"-So yeah, and then we made out," Ace grinned at him from the other side of the table. "It was awesome." 

"I'm sure," Sabo muttered. "No one needed to know about the details, though." 

The blonde brother seemed a little bit out of depth, but his worried look was soon replaced by a cheerful one when his girlfriend took a seat right next to him. Drake liked her, mainly because he saw how responsible she became whenever Sabo and his brothers caused any kind of trouble. Which was almost all the time. 

Koala sent him a warm smile, her hand instinctively reaching for Sabo's. The boy looked like the whole world just shifted and instead of in an austere school cafeteria, they were in a magical Disneyworld. 

Drake realized he was the only gloomy one at the table, so his face instantly lit up with a smirk. 

Just when he was about to drop a casual conversation starter, a loud laughter erupted in the center of the room. 

"Ay, you for real, dude?" Kid asked, patting someone on the back. "Hey, y'all heard him?!" 

The only thing Drake could make out of the situation was the fact that Law, who turned out to be the one repeatedly hit on the back, was sitting at Kid's table, which happened almost as often as Law getting an A- on any kind of exam - so in one word, never. 

"Party at my place! Saturday!" Kid yelled again, earning himself an immerse cheer from the whole cafeteria. "You still think no one likes me?" 

The last question was added more quietly towards Law, making the grumpy boy grimace. 

"We'll see about that, Eustass-ya." 

When the first wave of excitement died down, Ace turned in his seat to face the whole table again, his face lit up as the fourth of July. The turn was so vigorous, the pink hair elastic snapped and caused all of the raven hair to fall into Ace's face. The boy barely registered that.

Cute, Drake thought, but immediately scolded himself. 

"We have to go together." Ace's eyes sparkled with joy. "Don't tell Thatch, though." 

"Why not?" His brother finally unglued his eyes from Koala, eyebrows furrowed. From what Drake knew, Thatch was also the responsible friend, giving anyone who blacked out at parties a lift. He saved Ace's ass thousands of times, which seemed to make him feel uneasy - he owed him a lot, but didn't know how to pay all the favours back. 

"I like Thatch," Drake decided to speak. "He drove me home once."

"Yeah, of course we're bringing him along." 

Ace shot his brother a lethal stare. 

"Great."