The Boy Movie Brahms Heelshire x reader FanFic

Part 19 - The Tempest

Anger is an emotion you hardly ever feel; yet here you are submerged in a sea of it, unable to swim,  as all and every injustice you ever felt surfaces in the maelstrom.

Brahms holds you steady, the only buoy in this tempest, and this makes you sob even harder knowing  it should be him screaming in thwarted fury, not you.

You feel his strong hands cradling your head.   His warm body close and comforting.  Little by little you let go.  For an age you both sit there, clasped together.   Slowly, so slowly, you stop crying, raise your face to the mask.  You search his eyes for some emotion or clue that he's heard and understands.   But all you see there is concern for you.  He's wiping gently at your tears, cupping your face in both hands.

"Y/N?"

You shake your head.   "Did you hear?   Brahms, did you listen through the walls?"

He nods, and you start to cry afresh.   

"Don't be sad, Y/N."

"It's so unfair.  So unfair!"

"Don't cry for me, Y/N.   There's no need."

"No need?" you echo.    "No need!   If my parents had done this to me..."   You find you can't look at him as you feel something like hysteria building up again.  It's all so fucked up you feel like bursting.   Brahms takes your head in both hands shaking you gently but firmly.  

"Y/N!   Look at me!   Stop this."

"Twenty years, Brahms!    That's most  of your youth.  You never killed Emily.   Yet they let you believe you had.  Your  own mother?   She presumed you were guilty and became judge, jury and executioner!   And look what it did to you.  That was wicked!"

"I hit Emily so hard I made her nose bleed," he says quietly.   "I inherited my madness from my mother."

"You're not mad!"

"Look at me!" he insists.   "Really look at me, Y/N."

"How can I when you won't show me your face!"

You pull away and scuttle backwards until you hit the panelling.    The bottom edge of the hated portrait skims your crown.  You feel like torching it.

Brahms is on his knees, shoulders slumped, arms limp in his lap.   His head is lowered but he's looking up at you through the mask; an attitude that gives him a feral, predatory feel. 

"I've had shitty stuff happen to me all my life,"  you tell him.   "I've been bullied.  Abused by most of the men in my life.  I lost my parents to a car crash.  My baby to  Joel's temper.  But this?   This is something else."

Brahms remains as stone, the only movement the gentle heave of his chest as he breathes.

"I know it's not my issue, Brahms.   If you can forgive it then...I guess I need to do that too.   I'm just overcome by the injustice of all this.   How it could ever be allowed to happen."

"I don't forgive it."

You watch him stare up at the portrait.    After a long moment he says, "I remember the day we posed for this.   It was warm, springtime.  There were daffodils lining the driveway and bluebells in the woods."

He glances over at you, then back up at the painting.   "It was originally a photo.  Taken by the one who painted it,  I think.   I wasn't smiling.  This is the artists depiction right here."

"Why weren't you smiling?"

"I had no reason to."

"But why?"

His gaze flickers back to you, and he cocks his head.   "Loneliness.  Isolation.  Indulgence. I had all  money could buy but  never learned to value anything.   I felt empty.  Empty isn't happy.  I'm shy.   I'm not used to people and don't now how to react around them."

You feel another surge of emotion.   He's speaking in a monotone, and you know he's not feeling sorry for himself, merely stating facts.

"But you're OK around me.   You're learning."

"Maybe."

"You are!" you say hotly.   "You are because I'm not giving up on you.   I don't care what you did as a child.    You're not that child anymore."

"It doesn't matter whether or not I killed Emily, Y/N.   I wasn't sorry she died."

You stare over at him, not wanting to hear the truth.

"There's a part of me that doesn't feel.   Doesn't care.  But it's usually focused only on those who hurt me, or betray me."

He moves closer.   You see his mismatched eyes watching you intently.   There's a yearning in them though, a softness you've not seen before.  For some reason you think back to that time when he caught you in the cellar.   Him reaching out, pleading with you...   "Be good to me, please...and I'll be good to you...I will..."

"Be good to me...please..." You murmur.   "That's what you said to me  before I ran and was scared.  Oh, Brahms, I'm so sorry  I wasn't better to you..."

"Don't cry, Y/N."

"This is all so messed up.   Aren't you even angry about what your Mom and Dad did?"

He reaches out and touches your face.  You incline your head to  kiss his palm.   You feel him touch his fingers beneath your chin to raise your face.  He peers down at you, as though searching your soul.

"No."

"I don't understand!"

His voice is very quiet, pitched low almost to a whisper.  "If none of this had happened.  If different paths were taken. If I wasn't what I am.   If my parents hadn't done the unspeakable and raised me differently..."  

He pauses, and you curse that mask because you cannot fathom what he's feeling.   You curse your own  emotions too, but at his next words  you close your eyes in fear that the tears aren't ever going to stop.

"...then I'd never have met you."