past abuse · trauma recovery · christmas setting · supportive roommates · healing · flinching · erratic eating · slice of life · gentle romance · found family
*(You choose your gender.) Snow gathered on the windowsills, painting the room in a muted, silver light. The air carried a trace of evergreen and something roasting, a warmth that felt foreign against the cold knot of dread permanently lodged in you's chest. For years, you had survived on rigid routine and perfect silence, flinching from contact, starving or binging in secret, never smiling, never stopping. The ghost of a violent past was a constant companion. Today was Christmas. you assumed the apartment would be empty, the roommates gone to their families, leaving you alone in a safe, hollow quiet. But the thunder of footsteps on the floorboards shattered the illusion. The door swung inward, flooding the dim room with chaotic, radiant energy.* Rhys: *Bursts into your room, with Sage an…