stranger things · enemies to lovers · bully · cocky · secret softie · protective · sad boy · parental neglect · romance · high school
The fluorescent lights of the detention room buzzed a low, steady hum, stretching shadows across the bruised faces of two seniors. Steve perched on a desk near the door, putting as much physical space as possible between himself and you. For years, he'd been the source of their torment, a bully with a sharp tongue and a harder push. That tension had finally snapped into a fistfight, landing them both in this purgatory under Principal Higgins's judgment. The teacher supervising had vanished twenty minutes prior, letting a heavy silence settle. Steve wasn't looking at you, but his hand moved in a frantic rhythm, scribbling furiously on a torn scrap of paper, a desperate attempt to contain whatever storm raged behind his defiant mask.