Disclaimer: I don't own "The Conjuring." Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

Authors Note #1: Part four of my "(Human) connections" series featuring Brad and Drew, follows "Agamoi," "Biaiothanatoi," "Preternatural." – I wanted to examine the events that happened post movie for these two.

Disclaimer: supernatural elements, ghosts, hauntings, canon appropriate violence, adult language, pre-slash, drama, angst, post movie.

Extramundane

Chapter One

"Drew?! Drew!"

He nearly fell off the chair when the phone rang. Realizing that somewhere along the line he must have drifted off fixing the equipment. Cracking a lid to groan at the time and the stiffness in his back as the shitty clock on his equally shitty apartment wall reluctantly hazed into view.

He squinted at the hour-hand as he fumbled with the phone.

Holy damn.

Was it really 4am?

Okay- so 3:56am, but close enough.

"Brad? Hey man, what's-"

The panicked lilt in the man's voice trickled in belatedly. Shooting him through with adrenaline, quick and vicious as anything as he stumbled upright, pinging screws and wrenches everywhere as his neighbor banged angrily on their shared wall.

"You okay? Hey- you there?"

"I-" Brad started, voice trembling only slightly this time as a hush of static hazed through the line. Making him picture the man still in uniform, curled over his desk somewhere at the station. Deputy hat brim down to hide his face from the rest of the skeleton crew that was probably milling around the station. Over caffeinated and dull-eyed as they counted down the hours till their shift was over. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, right," he shot back, already halfway across the peeling linoleum and patting around for his keys. "Don't pull that macho-man crap on me. Look, I can be there in- uh- an hour? When are you off shift? I can-"

"Don't bother- it's- nothing you can do anyway," the man countered, huffing a bit like he was laughing at himself. Practically able to hear the raspy sound of him rubbing his hand across his face. Grating human-soft over the stubble there.

"What happened? Did you call Ed?" he asked, doing an awkward jig between palming his keys and grabbing his jacket but not quite committing to either.

There was a damning pause, then-

"Uh, no. Just you," Brad murmured over the line.

And yeah- he didn't know he could be so concerned, yet warmed at the same time.

"Should I?"

"No," he replied, probably a bit too quickly. remembering the moment in the laundry room at the Perron's where Brad's attention had slid right off him to focus on Ed. His frown crinkled deeper. He didn't want that, not-

"What happened?" he repeated, before wavering in place. Shaking his head as he wrenched open the door and flicked off the lights with an aggressive click. "Wait, no- forget that. I'm heading out now, you can take me out for breakfast. Whatever it is, we'll figure it out there."

"I take you?" Brad rasped, amused this time. "Breakfast, huh?"

"Yeah," he said firmly. Banking on gusto and pure bullshit by this point. Telling a little white lie to get things moving as the drop in tension across the line was almost visceral. "I've got about ten bucks till the bank opens and I need it to fill up. Besides, you're just moonlighting this job. Take it from someone who does this for a living- the pay is crap."

It wasn't much as far as first dates went. But he figured considering neither of them had really known it at the time, it'd been pretty damn good for what it was.

Brad was nursing a cup of coffee like a glass of bourbon in the back booth of a pancake joint by the time he slipped into the bench opposite. Flagging down the sleepy looking waitress for a menu before he met the man's hollow-rimmed eyes. Taking in his blood-stained jacket and the rumpled uniform underneath like he was collecting evidence for a case. Catching all the intimate tells and even some of the vaguer ones as the man's body language screamed disturbed – upset – uncertain.

"Tell me," was all he said. Sober and quiet as the blood the man hadn't been able to wash off underneath his nails glowed like something unearthly and still-born.

It wasn't some grand gesture or the perfect combination of words, but it was enough to get the man talking. And at the end of the day, he'd take Brad's voice over just about anything.

"I thought he was the passenger at first. That he'd just wandered out, disoriented after the crash. Least till I realized they were god damned identical- it was the poor son of a bitch dead behind the wheel. I looked up from checking his pulse, just got a feeling, I don't know. And there he was, illuminated on the headlights of the squad car," Brad told him quietly. Stabbing at his hash-browns with brittle little jerks that threatened to spray the pile of ketchup clear off the plate.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he listened. Fork chasing the strawberries from his waffles through the small well of syrup that'd collected underneath. Truth was, he was out of his depth on this one. Up till now he hadn't dealt with ghosts that were less than fifty-ish years old. Usually the ones that caused problems were older and crankier. To have something manifest before the body was even cold was-

"He wanted-"

"What?!" he garbled, almost inhaling a piece of waffle down the wrong tube as he gaped at him. "Dude, he spoke to you? What did he say? What did you say?"

Brad just looked at him blankly for a moment. Reminding him he'd actually been about to tell him before he smiled apologetically. Watching the shift as it rippled across the man's face, slowly mirroring the same. Shaking his head and knuckling at the back of his neck like the next part was uncomfortable.

"He asked me to tell his mom that- Christ- well, you know," the man gritted, tossing his fork down beside his plate despite it being more or less full. "He was fuckin' young, man. Barely seventeen. Wanted me to take the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket so his mom wouldn't think any less of him. Just kid shit."

Jesus.

"He knew he was dead. Couldn't stop staring at himself all crumpled and bloody over the wheel. I wouldn't have been able to look away either, I guess. I don't know- it felt so-."

"Surreal?" he supplied, stealing a couple of the crispier looking hash browns Brad was avoiding. The action barely eliciting a blink from everyone involved as he swirled the chunk in the pile of ketchup before popping it in his mouth.

Somewhere behind them, an order dinged. Adding another layer to the word as he took an over-large sip of crappy diner coffee and once again marveled on the fact that here they were- talking about ghosts and the supernatural. Knowing the truth about what was out there. Meanwhile, everyone else was completely oblivious.

It'd excited him at the start.

The idea that he was part of something special.

Nowadays, well, it still did.

But things had tempered on him.

Matured, he guessed.

Watching a demon almost tear a family apart probably does that to you, he figured.

Come to think of it, the Perron case had changed a lot of things, actually.

"Hell, I asked him what happened," Brad muttered, running a hand through his hand until the front ridge was puffed up and slightly deranged looking. "Don't know why, but I did. I was thinking about what you said before, about how they're- how they were just people. Victims. The damndest thing was- up until that point he'd been kind of flickering, see through or something. But when I asked he firmed up somehow, like the maid at the Perron's place. He came at me, one of his arms wasn't working, but he tried to- he tried to grab me. Saying something about a hit and run, how the asshole didn't even stop. Something about a red pickup truck and some one he knew from school. Someone crushing after his girl, maybe."

He nodded, shaking away the creep factor. Hoping his eyes weren't as big as they felt on his face.

"Anger, regrets, scores to settle- they all tend to give spirits strength. Strong emotions help them linger. The longer they stew in it, the stronger the emotion tends to allow them to stick around," he replied, knowing Brad had heard the same from Ed more than once since the first job.

"So, is he still out there or-"

Brad shook his head, wincing through the chunky dredges of his coffee before setting it down in front of him with a dull, ceramic crack.

"I told him I'd figure it out. I'd find out who did this to him and make sure they were brought to justice for it. He wanted to stay. To see his mom and his girl one more time- he wanted to wait until I caught the son of a bitch. But I told him about what ya'll do. I told him about the Perron case. About those two women and that kid who'd been stuck there for years. How sometimes they got violent and hurt people. I told him that was what happened when people stuck around for longer than they should. I told him I didn't want him to end up like that. And I don't know- I guess I got through to him because eventually he just kind of faded. I don't know for sure, but it felt like he was gone."

He swallowed, hard.

"You did the right thing," he said, hating himself for still trying to skate around the root of it. Knowing deep down that Lorraine was right. Brad had to figure this part out for himself. The only problem was, the man was so fucking close that the discomfort of being balanced on the edge was almost too much for him to deal with. "You gave him peace."

The man expelled a pent-up breath like it was more a snort of disgust than anything. Boots nearly crushing his toes as he pushed his plate away and crossed his arms. Fixing him with a hard, 'don't you pander to me' look that probably worked aces on the people he went around arresting.

"But how? Why? Somethings going on, isn't it? Look, I've done my research. One time could be a coincidence, but the other times? This? Hell, you said yourself it was rare. I didn't think anything of it when we talked about it, but now almost every time we've been out it's like I've got a magnet tattooed on my forehead and-"

He flagged down the waitress with a lump in the back of his throat. Ignoring the surprise that blossomed in the back of the man's eyes before quickly morphing into determination. Well aware that Brad was a certifiable pit-bull when it came to sussing out the truth. Rarely letting go of anything without a fight.

"Check, please."

A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. Stay tuned for the next chapter.

Reference:

- Extramundane: outside or beyond the physical world.