Work Text:
When Malcolm had first asked you to handle his deliveries to the Heelshire mansion, you were nervous to say the least. You hadn’t been there since you were a young child, that fateful day when the Heelshire’s had to bury their young son, but you agreed to do it for Malcolm. He was sick as a dog and you couldn’t let the poor nanny sucked into taking care of a doll starve.
Greta had been rather nice when you showed up at the door, though her confusion was rather poorly hidden on her face when the door opened. You explained that Malcolm was sick and asked you to handle the work, which was enough for Greta to allow you inside.
It was as if you had taken a step through time. Nothing about the mansion matched the current year, you were half expecting to have been magically changed from your jeans and cardigan mess into the formal attire of a noble from the late 1800s. “Nothing’s changed,” you had regarded after taking in the interior of the mansion.
You could still remember running through the mansion with your favourite toy while your mother discussed work with Mrs Heelshire. That was the day you first met Brahms, well more saw, for he was hiding behind a door and staring at you while you played.
Somehow, you’d managed to get invited for a cup of tea by Greta, you assumed she was just happy to have someone to talk to. “I probably shouldn’t do this,” she whispered to you while side eying the porcelain Brahms doll sat in his designated chair, “no guests and everything.”
“They’re just protective,” you had giggled, “they did love Brahms so much. Losing him again would have killed them.”
Apparently, Greta didn’t know the real story of Brahms Heelshire - you had yelled at Malcolm for not telling the poor girl about it earlier - so you gave her a brief run own on his short-lived life. Though you did decide to leave out the short encounters you had with him before his death.
You had ended up staying there for dinner as well, Greta had opened a bottle of wine and who were you to turn down a definitely expensive bottle, and chatted with the nanny through it all. You only had one or two glasses, you still had to get home after all, but Greta was more than happy to drink your share.
To put it mildly, she got rather tipsy, and so you were stuck listening to her slurred ramblings about her fears of the ‘haunted’ doll. You did not buy it, by any means, yet that hadn’t stopped Greta from trying to convince you.
“I’m not crazy,” she cried, “how can you not feel it? Like there’s eyes watching you everywhere you go - squeaking noises everywhere...”
You had softly helped Greta to sit on the couch, “I understand that,” of course you did. That feeling of someone watching you wherever you went had been there since you first entered the house, “but there’s nothing here, Greta. It’s just a creaky old house that you’re alone in - our brains get bored sometimes and make up noises,” you decided that that feeling inching up you neck was purely caused by being in the mansion for the first time since you were a child.
You’d given Greta your phone number before you left, telling her to call if she needed help or if she just got bored. Hopefully, it would keep her fears small, you had thought before getting into your car and driving back to your home.
When a battered and bloodied Greta lugged a half-conscious Malcolm through your front door, you were feeling a multitude of emotions. Confusion, worry and terror were the main three of the tsunami. Your half-done crossword was quickly discarded from your hands as you went to help Greta carry Malcolm to your couch.
As you helped treat some of her wounds, she kept murmuring, “I killed him,” again and again. You chose not to question it, shock still obviously coursing through her veins, and cleaned up some dirt and dried blood from her skin.
You let the two stay there while the police went through the Heelshire mansion. They found the deceased body of Greta’s abusive ex and, despite Greta’s insistence that the him she killed was Brahms Heelshire, only the asshole’s body was recovered.
The police ended up thinking that Greta’s mind has to create a false idea to protect herself from the truth of what happened - and Malcolm wasn’t any help to her case as he ended up with amnesia from the constant knocks on the head he received that night. Greta still refused to believe the truth of how she did not kill a deceased little boy, but rather a man who had constantly sent her to the hospital, and was admitted to a psych ward to treat her mental state.
Since Greta was gone, the Heelshires had yet to return from their holiday, and Malcolm was still recovering from his wounds - you had taken to looking after the Heelshire manor gardens. The police were still checking through the house and cleaning everything up for a few weeks, so you would just take care of the outside areas.
Then one day, you had just been writing a small note on your copy of Wuthering Heights when a knock on your front door interrupted you. It had been three and a bit weeks since the night Greta and Malcolm turned up at your front door, and you had been devoting most of your time to looking after the Heelshire mansion. The police had only just finished cleaning up the crime scene areas the day prior, so you had been preparing yourself to begin taking care of the interior. But, when you opened the door you were greeted by the Heelshire family attorney.
Apparently, the mansion was now yours. They had received a letter the prior week from Mr and Mrs Heelshire about leaving the estate to you to take care of, so you desire. You were shocked, to say the least, you’d barely spoken to either of them since the passing of their son. The most you would do was send them small smiles if you saw them around or commit to the horrible small talk if you had to.
But they apparently trusted you enough to leave you with their mansion? Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, you took on everything that came with living in a giant mansion - you had been meaning to move anyways. To be fair, you’d be acting like that of a housekeeper and getting paid for it, so you could say it was a job, but you got to live in the mansion so you didn’t care.
You’d begun to understand what Greta had been talking about after merely two days of living in the mansion. Clothing had started to go missing, objects were in a place one second then moved the next, and that eerie feeling of being watched never went away. You decided to blame it on being there all alone - not even the Brahms doll to talk with - and having known the child who lived and died there.
Then, six days after you had first moved in, that very porcelain doll was sitting in the parlour with a broken open head. The collected pieces of its head were sat in a pile on the doll’s lap but you could still imagine it’s glassy eyes staring you down. You’d decided that you needed a lot more than coffee before addressing how that got there.
You took two days to even approach the doll, much less move it, and when nothing supernatural happened you took it with you to the library along with the broken pieces of its head. You had bought some of the things you would need to repair the doll the day prior, it may have just appeared out of nowhere (you still decided to not question that) but at least you had something to talk to.
But repairing a porcelain doll was a lot harder than you imagined. It was like nothing you had done previously, and the number of times you had thought you got something correct then to realise it was completely wrong. It took a lot of patience, which you just didn’t have, so after two days and only achieving what seemed like nothing, you decided to space the task out better.
However, by doing all that and dedicating your time to fixing up the mansion, cleaning the giant place, repairing the Brahms doll - and also installing some more modern things in the house such as an actual television - you’d forgotten to take care of yourself. Meals were long forgotten and a lack of sleep was affecting your mind more than you cared to admit.
Finally, though, a week and a half after you had started to repair the doll, you got all the porcelain parts finished and all you needed to do was the hair. The cracks were still able to be clearly seen, but they were sturdy enough to not fall apart, so you considered the task a victory.
Though as you were staring into those fake, glassy eyes of the Brahms doll, you heard a voice whispering your name. A child-like voice that was so fucking familiar that it brought tears to your eyes. You had shot out of your seat, the doll hanging from your tight grip, as you looked around the room in fear.
The voice repeated your name again, with some creaking acting like little echoes, but it was further away. So you followed the voice as it lead you to the parlour.
As well as to a piece of paper with Rules written on the top in handwriting that brought you back to the memories of Brahms leaving you little letters around his home.
1. No guests
2. Never leave Brahms alone
3. Read a bedtime story
4. Play music loudly
5. Kiss goodnight
If you had been getting enough sleep, you would have questioned everything that happened since the doll first appeared. You would have run out as soon as the voice of a dead child spoke your name. You would have left as soon as you saw the two-place cards (one with your name and another with Brahms) on the table with two sandwiches placed in front of the seats.
Instead, you placed the Brahms doll at his allocated chair and went to your own. Perhaps it wasn’t just your tired brain making you follow along, but your own sick curiosity as to the unknown circumstances surrounding what was going on. Just what if the house was actually haunted, you pondered while taking a bite of the sandwich prepared for you.
You’d taken to speaking loudly whenever you were talking to the doll, dramatically announcing why someone may be entering the home (as to prove you weren’t breaking the rules, of course) or why you were leaving the mansion. At first, whatever it was seemed to dislike the course of action, multiple cries and stomps would shake the walls - but over time, the entity didn’t mind as much.
Perhaps because it knew you would come back after your short trips, or that the person who had entered the mansion was leaving shortly after.
The mansion was now modern, a month of you living in the mansion had managed to move the place forward a century. While you adored the library and the collection of novels stored in it, you ordered some more modern works to fill the shelves instead of just old classics. You got some records from some of your favourite musical artists so that it wouldn’t just be Beethoven constantly playing.
But most importantly, you finally got Netflix back.
You assumed the entity rather enjoyed being able to watch movies when you would. There wouldn’t be any tantrums, calls of your name or taunts while you had Netflix running. No matter what you were watching (ranging from Stranger Things to some god awful rom-com you watched to cure your boredom) it seemed to enjoy the service.
Taking care of the Brahms doll had become a part of your day-to-day life. You no longer had to remind yourself to grab the doll every morning when you would go down for breakfast, it became a reflex where you would mindlessly discuss any dreams you had the previous night.
Though, whatever the entity, that you assumed was in the Brahms doll, was - it did not enjoy when you would forget to look after yourself. If you had forgotten to eat during the day, yells would echo in the home until you started to cook yourself something. If you hadn’t slept enough, you would find notes telling (ordering) you to have a nap.
You would have complained if it wasn’t that nice to have something, no matter what, wanting to take care of you. And you even got to get paid to just chill with whatever it was - how could it be bad?
It had been two months since you first moved into the Heelshire mansion (you still hadn’t gotten used to calling it your home) when the voice of the entity asked you to go to the foyer. You did so, grabbing the Brahms doll from his chair and you skipped to the location.
Only to come face to face with yet another note, a seeming letter, on the floor.
Deja vu hit you square in the face as you grabbed the letter a began to read it, unasked questions in your mind finally getting those answers you were too scared to ask for.
They were dead - had been for a while. And that entity you had grown used to living with... well that was their long-dead (though apparently not) son, Brahms Heelshire.
He said your name, it came out a lot clearer than it ever did before, and you turned around. There stood an absolute giant of a man wearing a porcelain mask that resembled the face of the doll in your grip. He had on some old pants and a giant cardigan, that did admittedly look comfortable, and a pair of slippers on his feet.
He had curly black hair, you decided you wanted to twirl a curl around your finger, and a slight beard growing under the mask. But, most of all, the man stank.
“You’re alive,” was all you could say. He gave you a small, and absolutely adorable, nod while hiding his hands behind his back and kicking his feet over the others. His head was looking down at the floor, almost refusing to look at your face, it made you upset. All this time, he’d been able to see you and even communicate with you, and he couldn’t even look at you now? “Look at me, Brahms.”
His head shot up, either because you decided an authoritative tone would work best or because you used his name, and you were greeted with his bright eyes. Brahms took a step toward you, and when he noticed you hadn’t run or even flinched, he practically ran toward you until he was just before you, so close you could feel his breaths.
Brahms whispered your name, though it wasn’t in that child voice he’d been using all this time. You decided to consider this new tone of voice his actual one, slightly deep and enough to send shivers down your spine. “All this time?” You whispered it, but he didn’t answer, choosing instead to step impossibly closer and smell your hair. “Brahms?”
“Yes,” he eventually replied, looking you in the eyes, and though he was wearing a mask, you could tell he was pulling the puppy dog look. “I didn’t want you to leave.”
You cradled the cold cheeks of his mask in your hands and kissed the tip of the mask’s nose. “I’m not going to leave you,” he rested his forehead against your own and you shut your eyes, “I promise.”