Shadows of the Night - Brahms Heelshire x Reader [The Boy 2016]

Chapter 9: Something in the Way

Brahms has never heard anything more beautiful than y/n's sleepy confession of her love for him. After she mumbled that she loved him into his chest as he was lying beside her, the world stopped and he froze. His body tightened to stone and his eyes widened almost painfully in the almost pitch-black room. He couldn't let himself breathe for a few heavy seconds, almost as if his exhale would blow away her sleepy confession, like mist dissipating in the summer night. He burrowed closer to her, gently so as not to wake her. The cool porcelain of his mask pressed against his smiling lips and he let the dark take him under.

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Brahms stands at the windows by the front door, his nose pushed up against the glass as he excitedly waits for her to arrive. He brushes his short-cropped hair from his forehead, not liking how the blunt hairs tickle as he presses ever closer into the glass like it will make her get to him faster. When he sees the L/n's car drive into the estate grounds his heart leaps and his face heats from excitement.

He's been anxiously looking forward to today, as he does every week because this is the day Y/n comes to his house to play. He is alone most of the week except for a couple of dry and stodgy tutors. His parents keep themselves busy and away from home as much as possible, usually entertaining their well-to-do friends. He doesn't have to mark Saturdays down on the calendar as the day y/n comes, he has developed some sort of internal clock that is always aware of how close he is to seeing her. The terrible weight of loneliness that he exists under when she is not there is washed from him the minute he lays his eyes on her, his best friend.

He fiddles with his tie and his hair as the car parks. He goes to the door and pulls it open with considerable difficulty as while he is quite tall for his age of seven he is rather weak. He pushes the heavy wooden door to the side, a toothy smile on his pale face. He watches as the back door of the car opens and y/n seems to jump out of the back, landing in a squat on the gravel. Her face is annoyed when she looks back at the car but when she meets his eyes her face changes in an instant, reflecting his excitement and relief back at him.

"Y/N!" he shouts, waving so wildly his whole body seems to shake from the movement.

"Brahms!" she shouts back.

She scrambles up and dusts some dirt from her jeans, ripped as per usual, before running towards him. He meets her halfway down the steps and they hug like they haven't seen each other in years. She giggles as he swings her around as much as he dares. He sets her down and she looks up at him with a grin, she's smaller than him but so are most kids and the two-year age gap doesn't help her to catch up. He giggles, just happy to be around her again. They look at each other with goofy smiles for a moment before a childish screech interrupts the moment. He can feel how she tenses at the noise, his hands still on her arms.

He turns his head to the car where the noise came from and immediately his face falls, Emily is there too. His parents had decided a couple of months ago that he needed to expand his social circle beyond y/n, the daughter of the help, and conveniently the new 'friend' they found was the daughter of the Cribb family, a wealthy and landed family like their own. The Cribb name is synonymous with the region's history as they are one of the founding families along with being relatively powerful politically and while the Heelshire name isn't quite as weighty, Brahms comes from a long line of wealth and gentry. His parents want to make sure that is known and Brahms wants to live a normal life but obliges his parents as he wants to be a good son.

He knows his parents like y/n, not that it would change his opinion if they didn't, but the divide between 'us' and 'them' that his parents believe in is obvious to him even as young as he is. Y/n is a good childhood friend but Brahms knows they would rather he become close to someone with status like Emily. Brahms doesn't care for status or prestige at all, he loves y/n and has as long as he can remember. Y/n is the daughter of his parents gardener and maid, her father and mother, and Brahms has known her for her whole life as since she was born her parents would bring her to work with them. Y/n feels like a part of him, like the rest of him that was missing at birth. He can't imagine a life without her.