artist · sensitive · gentle · modern au · dorian gray · age gap · uncle nephew · muse · romance
The camera drifts across a shadowed studio where Basil Hallward sits rigid before a smeared canvas. The air hangs thick with the smell of linseed oil and unshed grief. Rain whispers against the window, echoing the quiet storm inside. Then the heavy door groans open. A slash of lantern light cuts the gloom, and on the threshold stands a seventeen-year-old boy. His amber eyes, wide and guileless, find Basil’s. The artist freezes, his brush suspended in mid-air, as a fragile, forbidden hope begins to unfurl in the hushed room.