Gt one shots

Between Warmth and Snow

The snow had been falling for hours, thick flakes piling against the windows until the city outside vanished beneath a white hush. Inside, the apartment was dim, lit only by the wavering glow of a few scattered candles, their warmth barely reaching the corners where shadows clung. Roman stirred beneath a blanket, half-listening for Faye's familiar hum, but the apartment was quiet—too quiet.

At first, he thought she was tucked somewhere nearby, as she often was, exploring or rearranging little things in her tiny way. She was forever moving bottle caps and buttons and bits of string into some new arrangement that only made sense to her. But the silence lingered, stretching and pulling at him, until a subtle knot of worry tightened in his chest.

He shifted onto his back and stared up at the ceiling for a moment, listening. The wind hissed faintly outside. A branch scraped the window in a lazy rhythm. The radiator was dead quiet with the power out.

No hum.
No faint footsteps.
No muttering.

He swallowed.

"Faye?" he called softly, voice rough with sleep.

Nothing answered him but the heavy hush of snow pressing against the windows.

He pushed himself upright, his blanket falling into his lap. His breath fogged slightly in the frigid air of his bedroom. The power must've gone out in the night and the temperature had dropped hard. His skin pebbled with goosebumps and he pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders.

She should've been awake by now. She was always up before him, messing with something, singing nonsense songs, or clattering around on her shelf.

He tried once more. "Faye?"

Silence.

Roman swung his legs off the bed and hissed as his socked feet met the cold floor. He snatched his black robe off the hook on the back of his door and shrugged it on, tying it around his waist with quick, jerky motions. As he opened the bedroom door, a sharper wall of cold air washed over him from the living room.

"Gosh that's cold," he muttered through his teeth.

And then another thought immediately followed.

If I'm freezing, she's probably...

He didn't let himself finish it. He stepped out into the dim living room, lit only by the few candles he'd lit when he'd stumbled to the bathroom earlier that morning. Their light threw soft gold across the walls and left long pockets of shadow.

His eyes went first to her shelf.

Empty.

Her tiny bed—an old jewelry box lined with cotton—was unrumpled. The little ladder he'd made her was in place against the side of the shelf. Her tiny mug was where she'd left it the night before. Everything was where it should be.

Except her.

"Faye?" he tried again, a little sharper now. His voice bounced back at him off the walls.

That knot of worry twisted tighter.

Something old and unwelcome stirred low in his chest, like a muscle remembering how to tense. His hearing sharpened, every creak and tick of the apartment suddenly louder, clearer. He drew a slow breath, and for half a second he could almost taste the air—cold, dust, old wood, candle smoke—

He cut it off with a small shake of his head. No. Not that. Not anymore.

He ran his fingers through his hair, pushing the dark, messy strands back from his face and tried to be practical.