The Boy Movie Brahms Heelshire x reader FanFic

Poppet - Part 49

Something wakes you.   It's pitch dark, and a glance at the bedside clock tells you it's three am.  You lie immobile, searching with your foot until you touch the warm flesh that is Brahms.  You can hear his soft regular breathing - so feel reassured.   Another nightmare?  No.  Tonight has been dreamless...so far.

You consider waking him, but don't feel it's fair.   The room feels chilly; it'll be several hours yet before the central heating kicks in.   With wide eyes that scan the black room, you feel a stab of unprecedented fear as your solar plexus begins to fizz.  It's an old sensation; something  you'd feel when danger was lurking, or you knew Joel was going to get violent.

Go back to sleep, you tell yourself, but you know that's not going to happen.  Then, across the room, you think you hear the soft scrape of a tiny something.   Your body tenses, and you raise your head a few inches off the pillow.    There it is again!   A kind of dry slow scratching.  Mice?

You sit up, pushing back the bedclothes, determined to investigate.  But you can't quite bring yourself to swing your feet over the side of the bed.  The noise sounds again, only this time at the opposite side of the bed.   The sensation of fear won't leave you so you whisper hoarsely, "Brahms!"

He doesn't stir.   Straining your ears, you listen but all is silent.   After a minute or two you lie back down and try to get things into perspective.   A mouse won't hurt you, and you can lay traps or poison in the morning.   Another glance at the clock tells you it's now 3.20 am.   You're just about to slide over to cuddle up to Brahms when something lands on the bed at your feet. It's neither large nor heavy, but has enough heft for you to feel the mattress bounce gently. Rat?

This thought is enough to galvanise you into action.  You lunge for the bedside lamp, but in your haste you knock it to the floor where it lands with a crash.  Brahms is awake instantly at your cry of fright.  

"Y/N?"

"There's something in here!"

He's out of bed and across the room, switching on the main light so you blink and squint against the brightness.  

"It got on the bed.   I thought it was mice but it felt more like  a rat."

Brahms rips the duvet off the bed, shakes it, then stares at you.  "Nightmares?"

You shake your head.  "I heard it moving around the room."

He kneels to look under the bed, then slams into the ensuite.   The room has little furniture in it, just the bed, two side tables and a chair.  Whatever was here is gone. 

"I heard it moving around.  It didn't move like a rodent...it was much slower as though it was...crawling.  No!  Don't turn out the light, please, Brahms."

 Brahms lays the duvet over you and gets back into bed.   "This house is old and sometimes the water in the pipes can sound like movement."

"Hold me, Brahms."

He does, and after an age the fear fizzing in your belly subsides.   You hear his breathing slow and regulate.   Nothing moves in the room.  Sleep comes for you an hour before dawn.

~

You lay rat poison in the corners of every room in the Heelshire mansion, but deep in your heart you know it's futile.   There are no vermin in the house; there never was.   You wonder if you're going a  bit nuts; if the guilt about Joel and Melinda is somehow affecting your sanity and reason.   But the sense of foreboding you've had since the nightmares began won't give you any peace.    

Two days later you and Brahms have your evening meal in the dining room.  You've cooked lasagne for him with a crisp green salad.   Over coffee he looks across at you and says, "What's really bothering you, Y/N?  This isn't just nightmares and things that go bump in the night.  There's something you're not telling me."

You avoid his gaze, stirring more cream into your coffee.  "You'll think I'm not right in the head."

"Try me."

"Remember what I told you about Joel and Elias?"

Brahms's eyes fix on yours and won't let you go.  "It's not possible, Y/N."

"See!  I knew you'd react that way.  It's why I'm not  talking to you about it."

He sits back in his chair and folds his arms. 

"Your body language sucks," you mutter, then take  a swig of scalding coffee.  "You want me to talk to you, but you've already made up your mind I'm off my rocker!"

You watch him unfold his arms, then lean both elbows on the table.    "I'm all ears."

"You're a sarcastic sonofabitch too!"

"Yes, but I'm your sarcastic son of a bitch."

You smile reluctantly, suddenly feeling very self conscious.   "I've been trying to tell you for days how I feel.  How I can't shake off this sense of doom."

"You think Elias will come back?"

"No.  He won't dare for fear he's killed you.  It's not that...it's something the pair of them did once.  Years ago when I was first dating Joel."

Brahms leans forwards and you know you have his full attention.  "I told you they were into the black arts...they had books, DVDs, ouija boards, pentagrams, you name it.  They scoured the internet for the worst kind of stuff...well,  one day this cop pulled them up for speeding.  They got a warning and a fine, and...that night they did this ritual.   I remember going into the room and there were lines and circles in salt all over the floor, and black candles and Joel had cuts on his arms.  They locked me in the bedroom but I could hear them both chanting."

You take another swallow of coffee.  "It went on nearly all night.   I thought they must be drunk or high,  or both.   When I woke next morning, the room was cleaned and no sign of what they'd been up to.  I thought nothing more of it.  Dismissed it for drug addled fantasy shit.   Then, three months later that cop died in a car accident."

Brahms cocks his head and you know what he's thinking.   "The RTA didn't kill him, Brahms.  I had a friend who worked in the local coroner's office.  She told me the autopsy showed he'd died from suffocation.  Choked to death.  But the thing was...that poor guy's tongue had been pushed right down his own throat."

"The impact?"

"That's what I said, but my friend told me they found something else in his mouth...it was a tiny doll made of hair and cloth. She said it was the ugliest thing she'd ever seen.   She'd called it a poppet.  When I asked her what that was she said it was what witches used to attack or curse a person."

"You think Joel or Elias rammed that doll down his throat prior to the crash?"

"I don't know.  There was a massive investigation but they found nothing.  No clues.  No DNA other than the cop's.  The hair the doll was made from turned out to be animal hair.   The vehicle was smashed to pieces but there wasn't a mark on him.  He didn't even sustain a broken bone, not even a bruise.   What killed him was what they found stuffed down his throat."

You stare miserably across the table at Brahms.   "They did something that night.  Joel and Elias.  Sometime dark and terrible.  And I can feel it here, in this house with us."

Brahms doesn't move.  You catch the glitter of his eyes as he scans your face.   Shadows dance across his features as the candles at the centre of the table gutter and spit.   Finally, he murmurs, "Elias."

You nod.   "He was here three months ago."