#isaacdowney

He clenched his fists in the pockets of his jacket, resisting the need to whine infrustration. There it was, he had chickened out again. He knew he would. It was a shitty idea. He shouldn’t have brought it up at all, actually. Now he had to pretend this was the plan all along and there was no way he could pull that kind of trick. What kind of desperate, ridiculous teenager invited the captain of the guard to dinner? Hell, he had a hard time realizing he had technically been an adult for months now, there was no way Drautos thought of him as anything else than some stupid kid.

Even if that kid was, technically, his boss. Or would be his boss. Hopefully in as many years as possible, because the only thing that stood between Noctis and giving direct orders was his father; but still, everyone knew he was supposed to give the orders at some point. And, shit, Noctis didn’t want Drautos to think he had to accept—the only thing worse than an awkward non-date with the captain would probably be an awkward non-business meal.

This was already a disaster and not even five seconds had passed. Great.

The captain hummed thoughtfully.

“Well, it’s the end of my work day, I have nothing else to do than get home—I suppose I can take an hour or two for dinner.”

Noctis had to swallow hard to put his heart back into place and manage a smile that wasn’t completely dumb.

“Cool,” he said, immediately wanting to slap himself in the face. “I’ll drive you then.”

Thehalf-smile that appeared on Titus Drautos’ face as he turned in the direction of the parking lot made Noctis feel like his feet were rising from the ground.

“So that’s what it is, huh—an excuse to take the car?”

Noctis almost strangled himself with his spit trying to answer:

“No! Not at all, no! I… I don’t need excuses to take the car.”

Even though he actually did, because he spent most of his time in the vicinity of the citadel and could reach all of his usual places by foot or with the subway, and even when he went to see Prompto he usually just walked there because it was ridiculous to ask for the car just to see his best friend; but he certainly didn’t want to let Drautos think that.

He was an adult with a car, not some stupid boy who got excited at the prospect of driving for ten minutes.

“I’m just messing with you, kid. I’ll actually appreciate resting my eyes for the ride.”

 “I said something wrong?”

And, there it was.

*

They were almost at the underground parking when Drautos talked again and Noctis realized he had just been caught up in his own thoughts and stayed silent the entire walk there. He blinked once, twice, trying to focus on the moment, only to find Drautos blocking the way and looking down at him.

Not as down, though, as he used to when Noctis realized how much he liked it when Drautos looked at him.

“Nah. I’m fine. It’s fine. Everything’s just peachy.”

“That doesn’t sound like everything’s… peachy, at all.”

“It’s fine,” Noctis gritted his teeth. “Are we going or not?”

“I didn’t mean to sound rude about the car.”

“You weren’t,” Noctis insisted. He didn’t want to have to push Drautos away because there was no way he could do that and not blush, but he also didn’t want to just stay here and wait for him to move because that was weird and maybe he’s had a few too many daydreams about love confessions in secret corners. “We’re good, okay? Come on. I want this dinner.”

For a second, there was something like an understanding piercing through Drautos’ dark eyes, like he knew it wasn’t just the food, it wasn’t for the food at all—but then maybe Noctis had just dreamed this, too.