The Boy Movie Brahms Heelshire x reader FanFic

Part 4 - The Truth

The video above is the song, Mother Stands for Comfort by Kate Bush.  It might have been written for Brahms.

This is chapter is dedicated to @slytherindaddy101

"I wasn't allowed to mix with other children.   My mother was protective.   My father adored her."

His voice is muffled beneath the mask and he speaks very slowly as though each word is carefully considered.    Outside, a blackbird starts its evensong.

"I don't remember the pain of burning," he continues.   "But I know it existed.  I know it made me ill."

You can't help but feel sympathy.  You can only imagine the agony of those burns.  He stares directly at you.  "It made me ugly."

What can you say to that?   You sit dumb as a rabbit in headlights, not able to meet his gaze.  Now, it's your turn to study your own hands.

"We went to the woods to play," Brahms says.  "Emily and I."

"You said your mother wouldn't let you play with other children."

"Emily was different.  I don't know why she was different, or why my mother made her an exception. She came from a good family... perhaps that's why.  I remember she was imperious, dominant.  Always wanted to order me around, get me to do her bidding.   I don't like that.

"That day...she said something, I can't recall what exactly, but it made me angry.  We argued, and she slapped me.  Slapped me so hard I fell over.  So I hit her back.  And I didn't stop."

You remember the ferocity of his temper as he killed Joel.  The way he'd straddled the heavier, stockier man, punching the broken porcelain into Joel's jugular until the blood ran in freshets. There'd been a primordial quality to that rage, and you'd known then that once roused Brahms would be uncontrollable.   

"Did you mean to kill her?"

"No.  But afterwards I was glad she was dead."

He says this last with a flat intonation that makes you nervous.    You wonder if he was cruel to animals as a kid.  If he pulled the wings off flies.   If he tortured...

"I'm not a bad person!"

You know you should appease him, just go along with his lack of self awareness.  But the wine's made your tongue loose and your brain careless.

"You killed her, Brahms!   Bludgeoned her to death!"

"And I paid for it.   My mother locked me in my room and tried to kill me."

"I've seen your scars."  You glance pointedly at his hands and forearms.   "It must have been awful."

"It is when the person you believe loves you the most, hurts you the worst."

"You were eight years old!    It's not like you'd have gone to jail.   At the worst you'd have just gotten some therapy.  Why didn't your parents help you with this?"

That head cock again, like a cat watching a mouse hole.

"Daddy broke the door down and put me out."

You close your eyes and try not to visualise that horror.   But you know what's coming next.

"So I went behind the walls to be safe.    I like it better there."

"But you're here, now, with me.  Outside those walls?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you yearn to be part of the world, Brahms?"

"What world?"

"Outside these four walls.   Mixing with people of your own age.  College.  Making friends.  Having fun."

"No."  

"But, Brahms...twenty years?"   Your youth, you want to shout at him.  Your formative years.  Two decades of loss and isolation.   The thought of it is overwhelming and you whisper, "How could they have done that to you?"

"My parents loved me..."

Love?  you want to say.  What kind of love twists a child into what you've become?

"...and I hated them for it."

Ahh, you think.   And his next words aren't really needed. 

"I made their life hell when I could."

"The doll," you ask.   "What of that?"

Brahms shifts in his seat, then tosses a clump of curls back from his forehead.    His voice  drops an octave and has a grating quality.   "It was everything I wasn't.  Beautiful and perfect.  Placid and malleable.   A child with no rage."

"An extension of you?" You ask tentatively.

His eyes meet yours and are cold.  It's getting dark outside now as evening draws in.    You don't want this to end up being a psychotherapy session.   You decide to change the subject.

"When I was a little girl, I used to dream of being a bird.   I would look up at the sky and envy the wild geese flying over our house in the fall.   I wanted to be up there with them...free and light as air.   It took me years to realise that I didn't have to be a bird in order to fly.  It took me years of being caged by Joel to realise that the bars were of my own making.   That I held the key to my own freedom."

You look askance of him, hoping he'll understand what you're trying to say.   

"Your parents are gone now, Brahms.  It's time for you to try and fly."

"Don't leave me, Y/N."

You sigh impatiently.   "Who said I was leaving?"

"They always leave," he says, his voice rising.   He sits with his head thrust towards you, his whole body language changed and threatening.   Instinctively, you know not to rile him or disagree.  You know how reactive he is.    

"Who left you, Brahms?"

"The others."

"How many others?"

"The ones that came."

"You mean before me?"

His breathing is heavy and distorted beneath the mask.  In the gloom, the eye holes are bottomless pits.

"What happened to them, Brahms?"

You watch as he stands, towering over you.   There's a sense of contained violence about him, restrained but only just kept in abeyance.  You feel a thrill of fear but keep your face upturned to his.   You mustn't show any fear.   You can't.

Then he's gone from the room.  Disappeared again into the walls.   And most disturbing of all, you feel suddenly bereft.

Author's note:  Hell, at this rate I'm gonna end up writing 50 Shades of Brahms.