Chapter 51 - Inside

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You both search the house for days to no avail.   You find nothing, and the house remains silent with no more activity.   You know it's not over; feel with all your being that what Elias sent lies in waiting.  You can feel it...impending.   A week passes.  Then another.   Brahms say little, but watches you constantly.   You know he's worried about you.  About your state of mind.  The irony of this should make you smile but you can't.  The knot of anxiety writhing in your guts won't let you.  Under the strain you grow thin and wan.

"Y/N?   You need to eat more."

"I'm fine, Brahms.   I'm just not hungry."

He sits before you and pushes the plate of uneaten breakfast back towards you.   "Please...for me?"

You nod and do his bidding.  The food feels like lead in your stomach.

"You're safe with me."

At his words, you look over at him.  "I know.  But Brahms, this is not something you can fight like Elias or Joel.  It hasn't gone.  I can feel it."

"How?"

"In here."  You place a fist to your breastbone.   "Whatever it is, it has intelligence.  It's using tactics on us even now.  We have to find its source."

"We've had this house upside down."

"It could be anywhere.  I remember Joel telling me Elias could plant things...spells that could be switched on months or years later.   I can't remember what he called them, but they had a source and a trigger."

"I don't understand..."

"Two elements to the magic.   Like a seed lying dormant just waiting for water to make it sprout into life.   Oh, Brahms, I dismissed that stuff for drug addled posturing at first.   I didn't believe it for a minute.  Crazy shit so typical of Joel."   

Brahms looks so solemn and boyish, you yearn to go to him, to be enclosed in those strong arms, warm and safe, to believe that nothing diabolical exists or can harm either of you.  In a small voice you say, "Joel planted the seed and Elias came with the trigger."

"Then why hasn't anything happened for weeks?"

"Perhaps like with that cop...there's a time delay."

He stands then pulls you to your feet.   Those arms are warm and all encompassing.  You lay your head against his chest, listening to the beat of his heart.   Typical of Brahms he says nothing; just holds you.  Because you need it, and he knows.   Slowly, you draw some of his strength into yourself.   His lips find yours, and you're lost in his mouth.   Evil and its machinations slip into the shadows.

~

What you've dreaded comes at last - furtive as sin and in a form that takes any fight you might have mustered, smashing it to smithereens.  

The day had been a good one, both you and Brahms finding peace by walking round the lake and taking a picnic in spite of the cold weather.   You'd laughed and loved and shared, even discussed him finally meeting your family; something that made you really happy on so many levels.   You feel you've finally healed him.  Made him whole.  Done what his parents couldn't.    

After a late dinner, you'd tripped upstairs to shower while he locked up downstairs, and were happily humming away to yourself when you came out of the bathroom to find the bedroom empty.  

"Brahms?"

You think perhaps he's gone into his own room to use the en suite there, so plonk down on the bed and wait for him.   But he doesn't come.  You pull on a short satin slip, then pad out into the hallway.   "Brahms?"

Downstairs, the grandfather clock ticks faintly.   You glance at the wall lights.  They seem lower than usual, the wide corridor of the landing dimmer.   At the head of the stairs you peer down.  The hallway is in darkness.   "Brahms!"   A surge of fear rises, but you beat it down.  This is Brahms and his games.   He'll be hiding somewhere, waiting to tease you with that unsettling way he has of emerging from the shadows.   Even after all this time, it never fails to excite you, but tonight you're really not in the mood.  You shake your head.   "Brahms!  Will you come up."

Exasperated, you stalk back to the bedroom determined to turn all the lamps on.   Halfway up the corridor you baulk.   Brahms is standing in silhouette at the far end of the  darkened landing.  "Holy Christ!   I don't need this tonight, Brahms, seriously."  You soften your voice.  "Come to bed, please." 

Brahms doesn't move.  He's so still you can't even see him breathing.   Silently, you wait.  If this is what he wants, you'll accommodate.  God knows, you'll enjoy the denouement.  You always do, Goddamn him!   You play your part, waiting for him to come to you.  The blackness of his shadow doesn't move.  After several minutes you wonder if this is some new sexual game plan.  Do you go to him?  Is that it?   Taking the initiative you take a step forwards.  Then another.  He's turned off the lights at his end of the corridor.   It's a full moon outside, and a bar of silver bisects the landing between you, streaming through a slim side window.   Another step and you swear you see the glint of his eyes.   Your voice is a whisper.  "Brahms..."

Something shaped like a crescent gleams faintly and you realise he's grinning in the dark.   It's a gesture so alien to Brahms you falter.  Something doesn't feel right.   You take a tentative step backwards, and that's when he moves.    Tall and athletically slim, yet somehow altered, the man you love isn't so much walking as oozing towards you.  He seems boneless, with a strange elastic gait that doesn't belong to him.   The tumble of dark curls, normally so soft and shining,  seem to writhe over his brow like live things.    Your mind clamours, this isn't Brahms!    

Then he steps into the bar of moonlight.  This silvery illumination should render his eyes monochrome, but you find yourself staring into a pair of acid green eyes.   The pin prick pupils burn with malevolent intelligence above that obscenely wide grin.    It's Brahms' face, his body and stance but duplicated.  For an insane moment you imagine you're dreaming, that this is some lucid nightmare and any moment you'll wake with the real Brahms' beside you.   The creature before you is pale as a coffin worm, a gurning travesty.   Several things flicker through your mind at once.   This is an hallucination?   A conjuring?    Possession?   This last thought fills you with terror.   This can't be your Brahms.   He's too strong to be taken over by anything Elias could summon!   You fight to find your voice but nothing comes out but a strangled squawk.    If you can only scream you'll either wake or the real Brahms will hear and come save you.   

Then you hear it.   The childlike timbre of the old Brahms calling your name; wheedling, plaintive, sly.   

"Y/N?   Come play with me."




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