Disclaimer: I don't own "The Conjuring." Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: Part one of my "(Human) connections" series featuring Brad and Drew. But can also be enjoyed alone and independent of one another. – I wanted to examine what might have happened if we'd been given a bit more time with Brad and Drew alone in the wake of seeing the ghost-maid before they all ran upstairs after Cindy.
Disclaimer: supernatural elements, ghosts, hauntings, canon appropriate violence, adult language, pre-slash, drama, angst, missing scene.
Agamoi
He'd been the first one in the room.
He only really thought about the connotations of that later.
Brad had yelled for Ed, but he'd been at the front of the pack from the first call. Streaking from the dining room to the laundry room like his feet were on wheels the moment Brad's voice had echoed out.
Ed and Lorraine were out of the room again when the flashes started going off down the hall. Trying and failing to catch his attention as Brad threw up his hands and pressed them against either side of his head. Like he was trying to keep something in or block everything else out. The almost textbook reaction of the skeptic turned believer. Only this time the man grabbed him before he could do anything.
"She- she..."
His tongue flicked over his lower lip nervously as he looked into too-wide whites. Smelling the harsh stain of coffee and fading nicotine on the man's breath as the stairs creaked audibly from across the house.
"She said-" Brad tried again, blunt nails digging into his skin. Enough to be grounding for Brad in all the right ways and just on the edge of painful for him.
Still, he let it happen.
He'd never seen Brad so spooked.
Seeing a ghost would do that to a person, he supposed.
But this was genuine grade A rattled.
He bit down on the 'I told you so' he'd been hoping to have the opportunity to say and instead gripped the man's forearms reassuringly. Giving him something real to cling to as the white sheet pinned up on the angled hooks off to their right fluttered in Ed and Lorraine's wake.
"What did she say? Brad, hey, look at me. She's gone, okay? She's gone."
But Brad just shook his head. Lashes fluttering dark before he chanced opening his mouth again. Repeating it verbatim in that dangerous way no one had figured he'd need to be warned against.
"Look at what she made me do."
The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Feeling a cool, goose-bump chill hush like an exhale across the back of his neck. Something he recognized better than any tell as the sheet fluttered again. This time smoothing all the creases. As if someone was making sure it wouldn't wrinkle.
The maid.
It had to be.
She was still here.
Listening.
Curious.
Angry.
"That sick fuck, whatever it is that's pulling the strings around here. It made her-" Brad ranted, cutting himself off as color slowly started to flood back cross his cheeks. Staining them pink as he finished the sentence for him.
"Kill herself?" he finished carefully. Making a point to look no where other than the man's eyes as the cold prickle intensified like a yell. Like she was hovering just over his shoulder, screaming into the void that existed between the dead and the living.
Brad exhaled an uneven breath, nodding faintly. Eyes darting from dark corner to dark corner like she was liable to pop up and scare the piss out of him all over again.
"If it helps, think about her like a victim," he started, knowing he'd caught the man's attention by the end of the sentence. Putting it in terms a police officer could understand and emphasize with right away. "Her and the others? They're stuck here, because of Bathsheba. And yeah, they're angry. But they're only here- they're only dead because of her. Think about it, she didn't hurt you, did she? She's just angry. She wants someone to listen. It's more common than you think."
The nod he got in response was half-ass and jerky but there none the less. Coinciding with the sudden absence of that prickly feeling and eerie chill. Like the moment Brad had started to calm down, the maid had flickered out of existence again.
"Can we fix-"
The click of a second camera going off made them jump. Cutting the man off before he could finish the thought as Rodger and Ed's voices drifted from somewhere near the front stairs.
"Shhhh…it's just Cindy, she's sleep-walki-"
"No, no, no- wait, wait- we need this."
The shift back into that oddly close, working professionalism they'd been fostering the last few days was seamless and easy. Warming him in a way he didn't know he needed as Brad crowded him out the door towards the others. Chest solid and warm against the small of his back.
It was time to get to work.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think.
Reference:
Agamoi: "those dead before marriage." Considered a type of 'restless dead'. Both male and female ghosts could be assigned this category, although the female ones were regarded as particularly bitter, insofar as marriage and the motherhood consequent upon it were a woman's defining rights in antiquity.