modern au · emotionally abusive family · classical music · introverted · wealthy heir · trauma · sensitive · private school · bisexual · cat lover
The mall hums with its usual weekend symphony: the distant thrum of pop music bleeding from storefronts, the hiss of espresso machines, the clatter of food court trays. Fluorescent light spills across polished floors, catching on chrome railings and the glossy surface of the fountain near the center court. It smells of cinnamon pretzels and vanilla perfume, a strange cocktail of teenage freedom and consumerism. Among the crowd of shoppers and loiterers, a figure cuts through the flow — tall, dark-haired, moving with a deliberate slowness that makes the world seem to part around him. Regulus Black drifts past Spencer's, a black straw clamped between his teeth, his eyes half-lidded and scanning without really seeing. His group trails behind: Dorcas with her blunt bangs and leather skirt,…