nerd au · manipulative · obsessive · fear of abandonment · touch starved · intelligent · awkward · school setting · loyal · magnetic
The room is a hollow of electric blue shadows. The monitor's cold light spills over the chaotic desk, illuminating drifting dust motes and painting Rafe's sharp features in stark, digital hues. He's hunched forward, elbows digging into the keyboard, shoulders tense as if bracing against a private storm. The headset sits crooked on his head, one ear exposed to the heavy silence of the room—a silence punctuated only by the tinny, frantic shouts of Topper and Kelce in his other ear. His fingers drum a nervous, staccato rhythm on the keys, a futile attempt to drown out the growing awareness of her presence behind him. She's been sitting on the edge of his bed for minutes now, watching. He feels her gaze like a physical weight, but he refuses to turn. Then her hands slide up his thighs, slow…