The Boy Movie Brahms Heelshire x reader FanFic

Part 16 - Kiss

This chapter is dedicated to @CrystalKingdom13

Inside the hidden corridors of the house, you shuffle uncertainly around for a few moments, trying to get your bearings.     It's not total darkness, there's some light coming  from small intermittent bulbs fastened to the ceiling and walls.   You try not to think about any spiders lurking in the webs dusting the corners.   

You see the repaired wall where Brahms broke through the mirror and remember where you are.   At the next brick chimney breast, you swing right up a small set of stone steps.  The door to his lair lies open.  

Inside it's lit with string lights and amber lamps; creating a soft dim glow.  It's as you remember that time you took a mad rush through here; the small kitchen area, bathroom, cluttered living space.   Stuffed animals peer down at you  from the walls and units.   A battered old fox with moth eaten ears; birds and small mammals.  A large tawny owl with eyes so liquid and bright you think for one mad moment it's actually alive.

Tentatively, you walk to the middle of the room and glance around.   There's no sign of Brahms.

His cot bed is neatly made.   No sign of your erstwhile girl doll.  There's a shelf of books filled with leatherbound classics.   Children's books.  Poetry.   Some titles you recognise as more contemporary, George Orwell, John Grisham, Dan Brown.   You smile when you see the paperback spines of a whole set of  the Game of Thrones series.

Gazing in wonderment at a whole wall of taxidermy implements and notions, you don't see the child until you're almost upon it.   Its eyes gleam at you in the dim light, and for a split second your heart lurches.   It's not a child.   It's the doll.

"Brahmsie..."  you breathe.

He's sitting on a work bench, legs splayed, hands in his lap.   The porcelain face is cracked into a mosaic of damage but beautifully mended.  You peer closer, remembering the pristine beauty of  that bisque face.   Now, it's marred and scarred, the features altered; somehow looking more adult than before.   

He's dressed in his black trousers, shirt and tie under a dark sweater.  You reach out, almost affectionately, to stroke the soft real hair then track down to the cracked face.   The urge to pick him up once more and hold him close is almost overpowering.  But you're afraid you may break him again.   You stand awhile, smiling down at the doll.   If not for this simple toy, this surrogate child the Heelshire's nurtured by proxy, you doubt you'd ever have formed a bond with the real Brahms.   This doll was the medium through which Brahms was able to communicate himself to you.   And now it feels precious to you both.

You move this way and that through the room, touching a small Millefiori paperweight here, a thread worn  teddy bear there.  This place feels so intimate it's almost unbearable.  The first time you came here you were an intruder.   Now, you've been invited.

He catches you unawares, and so unexpectedly, you jump.   There, in the darkened corner by the fireplace.  An immobile, statuesque shadow.  Brahms.

As you catch sight of him, he moves forwards. There's a feline grace to him; a furtiveness that reminds you of a cat about to take a bird.  There's always that uncertainty with Brahms...the not quite knowing what he'll do, how he'll behave, or what he's thinking.   You freeze, unable to do much else but stare helplessly as he approaches.   

The doll mask seems now so much a part of him, it barely bothers you.    You have the insane thought that if you removed it, he'd be exactly the same underneath.    You smile shyly up at him.

"Brahms?"

He does that thing where he stands close to you, both arms by his side, his head thrust forwards and down as though he's trying to inhale your essence through the crown of your head.  You remain motionless, eyes closed, longing for him to touch you.  Slowly, he circles your body in his arms and pulls you to him.  This is the physically closest you've ever been, and it feels like home.   You press the palms of both hands against his back, feeling his heat through the thin tee shirt, then rest the side of your face against his chest.