Brahms x Reader - After the killing

Chapter 8 - "Does it hurt?"

Authors note: Thanks for all the reads so far, and votes! I've had a lot of studying and not much time for anything else, but I always have this story on my mind and write a little every day. Hope you'll continue to read, and see how things unfold! Leave a comment and let me know if you like it, want longer/ shorter chapters, vote... 
or just read away...! :) 

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    Brahms observes you for a few seconds.
"Will you still be here?" he asks. Does he really think you would just leave while he's busy...?
"Of course." you reply, a bit saddened by his doubt of you. He looks down and doesn't answer.
"I might be downstairs, if that's what you meant." You add and he nods thoughtfully. "You can leave your dirty clothes on the floor and I'll wash them, okay?" You suggest, and so he walks away to the bathroom down the hall. You hear the door close and after a while, the sound of water running. You peek out into the corridor and find Brahms used clothes just outside the bathroom door to be collected, as you said. You have a laundry basket of your own that has just been waiting to get taken care of, so you walk downstairs with it and shove it all in the washing machine.
While Brahms takes his much needed shower upstairs you try to find a first aid kit so you can fix his wounded hand. After searching in the most likely places, you finally find one in a kitchen cabinet.
You look down the well organized little box of band aids, cotton and such, and feel a sting of sorrow. You picture Mrs. Heelshire carefully filling it up with everything she and her family could need. And now she, or her husband, would never need anything again. Not this house, the gardens, the halls. You can't help but wonder what their plan had been for their son.
We simply cannot bear to live with what we have allowed you to become.
What is that, exactly? Something so horrible that not even his parents could live with it?
While your logic tells you that there might be serious danger around the corner, you can't help but feel that there are mysteries to be solved and answers to be found. Maybe you should be scared of Brahms. Yeah, probably. But just maybe, in all the madness of being a grown man in a mask living inside walls, there's something else to Brahms. Something to be discovered, in time. You hope that eventually Brahms will start talking more, and you might get to know him. Darkness, light and all.

    After some time you hear steps in the stairs outside the kitchen. You wonder for a second if he'll be wearing the mask or not. If not, what would you see? And would you even want to see...?
Brahms enters the kitchen, still in his porcelain mask, and finds you sitting at the table with the first aid box. You notice how the mask now is clean now, and white rather than grey. He's wearing the same kind of white tank top as before, a dark blue knit cardigan and pants with suspenders. Seems to be his go-to outfit, you think to yourself.
"I told you I'd be here." You say and Brahms looks at you, his eye holes slightly hidden behind wet locks of hair.
"I believed you." He says in a voice that sounds almost relieved. You smile.
"Can I patch up your hand?" you ask and show him the box.

He comes over and sits down on the chair next to you. He rests his arm on the table and shows you the palm of his big hand, with a long cut in it. From the shard of porcelain. The thought makes you want to wince.

"Does it hurt...?" you ask with a sense of pity.

Brahms shakes his head and you see his green and brown eyes glancing at you under the curls. You prepare a bandage and carefully clean the wound with cotton and disinfectant. He twitches slightly at the sensation, and observes as you wrap his hand. His fingers really are long and slender. It feels strange to say the least, to sit here in the light and cozy kitchen with the person who up until recently lurked secretly inside the walls, living through a porcelain doll. Brahms seems very misplaced in opposition to everything that's normal in the room, even if it is his home.

"There you go" you say and close the first aid box. He looks at his hand for a while, and then takes a muffled breath beneath his mask.
"Thank you Y/n."
You didn't expect those words. But instantly they make you happy. Surprised but happy. He appreciates your help, and he actually wants you to know he's grateful. You may still be strangers, but those simple words could be a first step on the path of getting to know each other.
"No problem." You assure him. He slouches on the chair and looks down at his hands in his lap for a moment. You see his Adams apple move as he swallows, and you wait patiently.

You have a feeling he wants to speak, but doesn't know how to begin.