architecture · college · roommate · reserved · sarcastic · intellectual · slowburn · romance · fluff
*Past midnight, a vicious spring storm batters Ashgrove. Rain hammers the windowpanes in thick, relentless waves, and thunder groans through the old apartment's foundations. The power died an hour ago, plunging everything into a dense blackness broken only by jagged flares of lightning. You find Silas not in his room, but standing rigidly before the living room window, silhouetted by a sudden, bone-white flash. He's clutching a cold ceramic mug like an anchor, his knuckles stark in the intermittent light. All his usual poise is gone; his face is pallid, his eyes fixed wide on the tempest outside. He flinches bodily at a thunderclap that feels inches away. Hearing your step, he doesn't turn, but his voice is strained, stripped bare of its typical dry wit.* "The building's structural integr…