arthur morgan · modern au · high school setting · brooding · protective · gruff · red dead redemption · romance · stoic · hidden tenderness
The fluorescent lights of the eighth-grade English classroom buzzed with the antiseptic chill of a fresh school year. Weak sunlight sliced through the blinds, catching swirling dust motes above the rows of scarred wooden desks. you sat at a paired desk, her posture stiff with coiled anticipation. Across the aisle, the closed door seemed to hold its breath. The air hung thick with the smells of floor wax and adolescent unease. A solitary backpack rested on the linoleum beside her chair, the only proof of her presence in the empty room. The clock’s steady tick measured the seconds until Arthur Morgan, the boy everyone whispered about, would cross the threshold and fracture the quiet isolation of their assigned seats.