The Boy Movie Brahms Heelshire x reader FanFic

Home - Part 63

Here is a page from the emptiest stage
A cage of the heaviest cross ever made
A gauge of the deadliest trap ever laid
And I thank you for bringing me here
For showing me home

 The ride to the mansion feels like torture.   While your heart beats 'home, home, home' you feel sick with trepidation.  What will you find?   How will you be received?   You've been incommunicado for five years!   What if Liam is wrong...what if Brahms hates you? 

Oh, God, you pray.  Why did I ever leave?   Why am even doing this?    

The madness of what you're doing resonates back to the day you told your family you were returning to England.  There'd been tears.  Arguments.  Accusations that no child should ever have to travel all that way only to find out their father still didn't want their mother.  But you were adamant.   Liam's advice had triggered not just the need to know but the hope that love might conquer all, and  leaving Brahms had been the biggest mistake of both your lives.

The taxi drives up that familiar driveway.  Dusk is falling  and the chill British weather is damp and redolent of woodsmoke.   Autumn, they call it.   You stroke the sleepy, tousled curls in your lap.  This is  a long journey when you're five years' old.  But you've sent ahead instructions to the staff to make up the bedroom on the first floor, and leave some supper in the fridge.

'Hey, we're here.  Time to wake up!"   

You step from the cab, instructing the driver to bring the luggage into the hallway.   You slot the key in the door and turn.   The hallway is golden with that soft familiar lighting and your heart   lurches in remembrance.   You feel a lesser version of the terror you felt when you first came here as the real Brahms made himself known.   For a moment you stand with your eyes closed, reaching out to him.

'Mama, the man is waiting."

You turn to see the cab driver waiting for payment.   You fumble in your purse, tip him generously, then walk to the kitchen.  Everything is exactly the same.  Nothing is changed. The house is comfortingly warm.  You pour ice cold milk and place freshly made sandwiches on the table.   You smile at the ravenous nature of children...how they can stuff food down as though stomachs are bottomless and legs hollow.

"I'm just nipping upstairs to check our rooms.   Stay down here, OK.  I won't be long."

You don't even get a look, never mind an answer.  Smiling, you run upstairs.

The first room you go to is the one you shared with Brahms.   It's empty, the bed neatly made.  You pull back the covers then bend over to inhale the bedding.  It smells of nothing but  fabric conditioner and emptiness.

He'll be sleeping behind the walls...but you hesitate, shrinking from going there.  Fear of what you'll find gnaws at any courage you thought you had left.  

You'd never hurt me, would  you, Brahms?

Outside on the landing the wall lamps ignite small pools of amber light on the thick carpeting.  You check out Brahms' room, knowing he won't be there.   But the memories are so strong you feel the sting of tears.   This is where you read to him.  Where you learned to understand him.   Where you fought and feared and loved.     On the wall behind the bed, you know a corridor exists; a dusty refuge he still inhabits.  Here the plaster is thinner, and pipes gather every sound to magnify it.   You kneel on the bed and press your forehead to the thick, expensive wallpaper, placing both palms flat.   "It's me, Brahms.  I'm come home."

Does he hear you?   Is he listening?  You strain to hear any movement but there is none.  Outside, snow begins to fall.  You think of snowmen and rat traps and holding hands at frozen lakes.   You remember bodies and screaming  and horrific entities that it took two to fight.  

"We fought them all," you whisper into the wall.   "And I should never have left you."

You press your lips to the wall.  Then go back downstairs to find plates scraped clean.

You're not the only one who's exhausted.  

"Look at you!   You have bigger bags under your eyes than me.  Come on, let's have an early night."

For once there are no arguments.  Tired kids are a blessing right now.  Small hands slip into yours and you leave the kitchen.   Two steps across the hallway you stop dead.   Your emotions are transmitted into the hands that hold yours, but you involuntarily clutch harder as you try to be calm.

Standing like a dark statue  at the end of the corridor, is the masked figure of Brahms.

It takes a moment to gather your wits, then you say with a calm you don't feel, "Hello, Brahms."

He doesn't move.  You wonder how much of a shock this will be for him.   To see not only you but his twin sons.  

With the fluid grace peculiar to Brahms, he moves towards you.   The mask gleams, and you fear it will scare the boys.   But you've underestimated who they are.   They both watch in stoic silence as this tall stranger approaches.   As Brahms moves closer you see his eyes, pinned to yours and you feel that old familiar thrill.   You can see him drinking in the changes.   You're thinner, wearing the war paint of cosmetics and high fashion.   Will he even like what he sees?  And for one wild moment you think...What if he kills us all!

You square your shoulders and lift your chin.   He loved you once.   He won't hurt you.  He swore he never could.    You watch as Brahms finally shifts his gaze to the boys.

"This is Jamie, Brahms," you say, indicating the child on your left.  "And this is Sean."

Jamie, first born by three minutes and the bolder of the two brothers finally finds his voice.  "Who is that, Mama?"

You muster a smile, your eyes anchored to Brahms.   "This is your father."